


Kill It If You Have To

by RebelWren



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VIII: The Last Jedi (2017), Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Amnesia, Angst, Drama, F/M, Happy Ending, Humor, Memory Loss, Romance, Tropes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-15
Updated: 2019-03-11
Packaged: 2019-03-18 07:53:33
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 17
Words: 80,751
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13677456
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RebelWren/pseuds/RebelWren
Summary: She didn’t know where she was, or what had happened, or even her own name, but as her vision cleared she knew that the black heap lying helpless on the ground was a man, and that the thing in the hand of the tall man standing over him was a blaster, and that was enough.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Story begins immediately after _The Last Jedi'_ s throne room fight scene.

She woke with a groan, ears ringing and mind completely blank.

Something had happened.

She opened her eyes, blinking at what looked like a large chamber stretching out in front of her. Where was she? Disoriented, she raised her head, peering with still blurry vision at heaps of red, and one of black, lying on the floor amid small scattered fires. Nothing seemed familiar.

She focused inwards but found no answers, her brain offering names for _things_  but not for people. Not for herself. She frowned, wanting to dig deeper, but her instincts were telling her to move and she decided right then that she was a person who listened to their instincts.

Motion across the room snagged her attention and she turned to see a tall man with vivid hair slowly raising his arm. He was standing at an angle to her and seemed oblivious to her awakening, staring down at something on the floor in front of him… she followed his gaze and her heart jumped, everything inside her seeming to clench in protest.

She didn’t know where she was, or what had happened, or even her own name, but as her vision cleared she knew that the black heap lying helpless on the ground was a man, and that the thing in the tall man’s rising hand was a blaster, and that was enough knowledge to propel her up off the floor and across the room with an attention-pulling roar as she leapt over the fallen figure of the black-clad man and threw herself at the threat.

He went down hard, shock plain on his pale face as his back hit the floor and her full weight crashed down on top of him, the dual impact driving the air from his lungs with an echoing grunt. She scrabbled for the blaster in his hand, but his arm was longer than her reach and she settled for gripping his wrist and banging it against the ground, relieved when the blaster flew free and skittered across the floor.

She scrambled up over him and lunged after it, fingers stretching out, but he recovered enough to grab her leg before she was clear and she turned back, kicking out with her free foot at his arm, and his head, and anything she could reach, but he didn’t let go, avoiding her blows as much as he could but holding on regardless, his fingers digging in as he tugged her back towards him and swarmed up over her, reaching for the fist she swung at him and pinning it down.

He was thin, but with a wiry strength, and they wrestled for long minutes, edging ever closer to the blaster until a glancing blow from her elbow caught him hard enough in the temple to loosen his grip and she wrenched free and scrambled to her feet, scooping up the blaster and pointing it as she whirled around, getting one last glimpse of his horrified face as he surged up after her and she pulled the trigger.

“ _No!_ ”

She might have turned her head in the direction of the shout had she not been staring in fascination at where the blaster bolt was suspended in mid air, still a foot from its intended target.

Wow.

She knew about the Force; of course she did. But if she’d ever seen it put to such dramatic use, she had absolutely no memory of the occasion. Could _anyone_ do that? No; she felt sure that it was rare. Could _she_ do that? She searched inside herself and decided that yes, she probably could. She wasn’t going to mess with it now, though. She didn’t feel at all confident that she wouldn’t send the bolt the wrong way and end up shooting her own arm off. And her opponent clearly had no such skills, as he was still staring blankly at the blast hovering inches from his nose, so the immediate danger seemed to have passed.

She stepped back a couple of paces anyway, taking the blaster well out of reach of his long limbs, but keeping it aimed at his head. Only then did she permit herself a fleeting glance at the man she had protected without thought or hesitation.

He was awake. _Obviously_ , she rebuked herself. Unconscious men rarely interfered with her battle choices. At least, she supposed as much. She stole another glance and revised her opinion. He was awake, and _gorgeous_. He had one arm outstretched in the direction of the frozen blaster bolt and was half way to his feet, and he kept rising. And rising. _Gods_ , and she’d thought the ginger guy was tall…

“There’s no need to kill him,” tall, dark, and breath-taking said.

She scowled at their enemy, who now looked completely confused - perhaps she wasn’t the only one who had lost their mind today. He opened his mouth, but his wasn’t the voice she wanted to hear and she took a few quick steps forward, avoiding the still frozen bolt as her arm flicked out and then swung back again, smacking the butt of the blaster hard against the side of his head. He dropped like a stone and the bolt flew harmlessly through the space he’d vacated, hitting the far wall in a shower of sparks.

“Is he…?”

She shrugged, tucking the blaster into the holster at her hip. “He was going to shoot you in your sleep,” she pointed out, feeling obliged to defend her _perfectly reasonable_ actions as she stepped over the now satisfyingly unconscious figure. “But that wasn’t a killing blow.” How did she _know_ that?

“Right. Good. That’s good,” the handsome man replied, glancing around somewhat nervously as she strode determinedly towards him. He almost looked as if he was going to step back, but he didn’t, instead straightening his _frankly enormous_ shoulders and regarding her curiously.

“Do I know you?” he asked.

She stopped, still an arm’s length away from him, which seemed like a decent enough gap. Not one of her own arm’s lengths, admittedly. The arm’s length of a considerably shorter person. Possibly a child.

“Yes,” she replied with certainty, then thought again. “At least… I feel like you do. Or like I do. Know you, I mean. I mean, I feel like we know each other.”

He looked nearly as confused as the unconscious guy.

“I don’t actually remember anything,” she elaborated. “I just woke up over there.” She pointed, but his eyes didn’t follow the direction of her finger. “What about you?” she asked.

“I…” He had been staring at her through that whole babble, but now he looked around more purposefully, taking in their situation. “We should get out of here.”

“Yes,” she agreed. “Where is ‘here’? Do you know?”

“I don’t…” He frowned, and shook his head.

She quickly scanned the room. Despite tall, dark, and dreamy’s recent objection to killing, he seemed pretty good at it; she wasn’t sensing any signs of life from the red heaps – soldiers, she now recognised - scattered about the place, and certainly not from the… whatever _that_ was in the gold dress, and there was no way she’d taken them all out on her own.

“We must have got here somehow,” she observed, adopting the working hypothesis that his mind was as blank as her own. Although he was clearly a much more instinctive Force user.

“Yes, but there’s no guarantee we can get out the same way,” he agreed. “This looks like a throne room,” he nodded towards what was certainly either a throne, or a spectacularly solitary chair, “which suggests ‘leader’, which suggests ‘escape craft in case of emergencies’.”

She beamed at him. “Good thinking!” She looked around again, this time with a specific objective in mind. “Over there.” She pointed. She had no memory of this room, but if she pictured the layout in her head, that was where she pictured an escape craft.

He cast her a quick, uncertain look, but made no protest as she raced off, eager to see if her guess proved correct. Which, to her pride, turned out to be the case.

The ship was small, but still huge for an escape craft. Clearly ‘gold dress’ liked to travel with a retinue – you could easily have fit all the red-clad soldiers in here, even with the varied selection of weaponry that had been strewn about the place. She jumped into the pilot’s seat without thinking, running her hands over the controls and relieved to find she had no doubts about any of them. Perhaps flying was what she did? It felt like something she could do.

“This is great!” she yelled over her shoulder. “Come and… Oh!” She was startled to see him almost directly behind her.

“I think this must be yours.” His voice held a regretful tone, and he stepped forward and held out his hand to reveal two intricate looking metal objects.

“I’m sorry,” he said, as she peered at them. “I have mine.” He nodded down to his waist, where she now noticed the hilt of… Gods, a _lightsaber_! How cool! “But I’m afraid…” He stretched out his hand a little further, offering her the pieces, and she abruptly realised what he meant.

“Oh,” she said sadly, regarding what had undoubtedly been another lightsaber. _Her_ lightsaber? How crazy was that?! She reached out, but then pulled her hand back. “Never mind that now. We should get out of this place. I have a bad feeling about it.”

“Yeah, me too,” he agreed, strapping himself into the co-pilot’s seat beside her.

She gripped the controls, but then paused and looked at him. He looked back. She had the fleeting thought that she should be terrified, having no idea of who she was, or what the hell was going on. But above any fears or doubts was the overwhelming feeling of absolute rightness that she was embarking on a fresh adventure with this unfeasibly hot man, who felt somehow _hers_.

She grinned at him. He grinned back.

She punched it.


	2. Chapter 2

“We didn’t do that… did we?”

He asked the question without looking away from where the unimaginably huge ship they’d just escaped was now breaking apart in front of them. Even with no memory, he knew it wasn’t a sight one saw every day. Or decade.

“I don’t know,” breathed the woman beside him. The distress in her voice made the view abruptly less interesting and he turned to see her gazing wide-eyed at the spectacle before them. “How many…?” she started to ask, and he instinctively understood her question. 

He stretched out a hand and she put her own into it without looking.

“That's a Mega-class Star Destroyer...” he replied, considering his answer - he wouldn’t lie to her, but he could definitely estimate on the low side. “Perhaps two million.”

She flinched, and he tightened his grip.

“Although many, perhaps even most, will survive,” he added quickly. He pointed with his free hand, even though she was still staring straight ahead. “Look – you can see that whatever happened, it’s just split the ship in two. Much of it is essentially undamaged. And there are many other vessels available to help.”

It was true – there were indeed lots of ships swarming around the broken behemoth. Whoever these people were, they were clearly going to be busy for quite some time. The woman looked away from the viewport at last and turned to him.

“What _happened_ to us?”

“I…” He searched her face, but had no answers to give her. And he would have given them to her. Whatever they were. He would give her anything. Ever since he’d opened his eyes and seen this incredible woman about to take a life she didn’t need to take, nothing else had mattered. He was aware, of course, that there might well be many important things in his life – without his memory, he had no way of knowing – but he was completely certain that nothing could ever be as important as her.

“What do I look like?” she asked suddenly, perhaps wondering what he hoped to find on the outside that she didn’t already know on the inside.

“Perfect,” he replied immediately, then felt his cheeks heat in what he knew would be a vivid blush. ‘ _Idiot!_ ’ he berated himself. _‘Way to creep out the person half your size!’_ He pulled his hand free and turned to look out of the viewport again.

“There’s probably a mirror in the fresher,” he suggested, after a good half minute of determined wreckage-gazing. He’d already got a fair idea of his own image just from passing reflective surfaces. Doubtless she would turn out to have _some_ weaknesses, if he succeeded in staying with her long enough to discover them, but clearly vanity wasn’t going to be one of them.

How long he might have remained staring resolutely ahead he didn’t know, but after another two minutes of gradual blush-fading, there was a loud buzzing noise, which seemed to be coming from her person. He looked around to see her patting at her waist with both hands, before coming up with a small communication device. They looked at each other.

A series of roars emerged from the device, and they both stared at it, then back at each other.

“ _‘Rey’_?’ he mouthed at her. “Does he mean you?”

She shrugged at him helplessly. “I guess so? Wait – you speak Shriiwook?”

He shrugged back. “I guess so.” Clearly he wasn’t the only one.

“Hello?” she said into the comlink.

More roaring ensued.

“Yes, I’m fine,” she reported, then listened again. “Do I have Ben?” she repeated. She looked at him and raised her eyebrows.

He shrugged again. “If that’s me, then yes,” he replied, seeing no point in prevaricating after the ‘ _Perfect’_ fiasco. “Yes, definitely.”

The roaring became more approving as the Wookiee on the other end heard his voice, so it seemed that he _was_ this ‘Ben’ - whoever that was. And she was ‘Rey’. He smiled. _Rey_. It suited her.

The conversation had continued and as Rey set down the comlink they had a rendezvous arranged with the as-yet nameless Wookiee, whom Ben could only hope was friendly. He’d sounded friendly. Well, as friendly as a Wookiee could sound, which in fairness wasn’t very. But he’d clearly known them, and surely Rey wouldn’t be carrying a comlink to someone who wasn’t on their side.

“D’you think we must be Jedi?” he queried, as the thought that had been lingering in the back of his head pushed itself forward. He didn’t know why it hadn’t struck him more urgently earlier in fact, in view of the lightsabers and the Force powers – but in his own defence, there had been rather a lot going on.

“JEDI?!” She had been half way through setting their course, but now her hands froze on the controls and she gaped at him, her mouth dropping open. He tried not to stare at it.

“Well, there are the lightsabers…” he started, but he could tell she wasn’t listening.

“ _Jedi_ ,” she repeated, her voice hushed and reverent. “Do you really think so?”

“Well,” he tried again. “There are the lightsabers…”

She blinked at him. “Yes! Sorry, yes.” Her eyes fell to the saber at his waist, and then she looked eagerly around the cockpit. “Where’s mine?”

He reached into his tunic, where he had tucked the pieces for safekeeping, and brought them out, offering them to her once more.

“Wow,” she said softly, reaching out towards them, but then she pulled back. “Hang on, just let me set this course first. We only have a few hours until the rendezvous, so we should get underway.” Her hands moved back towards the controls, but her eyes lingered on the saber.

“I’ll do it,” he offered, keeping the pieces temptingly close under her nose.

She looked up at him doubtfully. “Really? Do you know how?”

His eyebrows rose in tandem with his indignation. _Really!_ She might be the personification of every dream he didn’t remember having, but he must have nearly a decade on her.

“I do,” he replied stiffly, aware that he sounded like a pompous old protocol droid but completely unable to help himself.

She reached out again, but bypassed the saber and gripped his forearm. “I’m sorry,” she said earnestly. “I didn’t mean to offend you.” She smiled so warmly he felt instantly mollified. “You just… well, you don’t look like a pilot. Not that I’d necessarily remember what a pilot looks like, I suppose. Or maybe I would - I’ve not really worked out yet what I remember and what I don’t. And not that all pilots have to look the same, of course.” She paused, her eyes running over him. “But I don’t think a pilot would look like you.”

That was a statement that raised some interesting questions, but Ben refused to be distracted. “I can fly this ship,” he said, with complete conviction. He nodded to the area behind them. “There’s seating back there. Why not take your saber and see if it strikes any chords? Perhaps it will help you remember?” He hoped that she’d get a bit of rest, too – she’d already been full-on fighting for he didn’t know how long by the time he came around, and she had a bruise above her eye and a nasty wound on her upper arm. And who knew what challenges lay ahead?

She smiled brightly at him, and for a moment his piloting claims seemed like so much hot air as he doubted his ability to operate anything more complex than a trash compactor. Her hand tightened on his arm, then she swept up the lightsaber pieces and disappeared towards the long couch he’d spied when boarding the ship.

He exhaled carefully. ‘ _Get a grip, Ben-whoever-you are_ ’, he told himself. Already, Rey felt like the glue that kept his heart and mind together, but that by no means meant she felt the same way. And she was very young. ‘ _Don’t be creepy’_ , he admonished himself. He set the course and made sure the ship was on track for their rendezvous, and then went in search of a medpac.

By the time he approached her, bacta patch in hand, she was sitting cross-legged on the couch in a meditative pose, with the broken saber on the table in front of her. Her eyes were closed, but he could sense the energy around her.

“I don’t know how to fix it,” she said sadly, without opening her eyes. “I recognize what it is, and I can see -” she waved a hand towards her head to indicate a mental image, “- what it _should_ look like, but I have no idea how it works.” She opened her eyes and looked at him. “I should know that, shouldn’t I? Don’t Jedi make their own sabers? How do I remember other skills, but not this?”

“I don’t know,” he admitted, raising his hands in a helpless gesture. The motion drew her attention to the patch he was holding.

“Did you bring that for me?” she asked, wide-eyed, looking from his hand to his face and back again.

“It’s just a bacta patch,” he said dismissively, holding it out to her. “Nothing special.”

“You brought it for me,” she repeated, dazzling him again with her brilliant smile. He blinked as she uncrossed her legs and shuffled over on the couch to make room for him, and then held out her injured right arm. “Thank you,” she said.

After a brief, startled pause, he slowly lowered himself to sit beside her. He supposed it would be a bit tricky for her to apply the patch herself, even if she seemed remotely inclined to try. He could do this. He could touch this woman in a medically approved way, without drooling all over her or doing anything inappropriate. He could. Definitely.

A visual inspection suggested there may be some dirt in the wound, which was hardly surprising as she’d been wrestling on the floor when he first saw her, so he set down the patch for now and dug out the antiseptic cleaning pad he’d also taken from the medpac.

“Okay?” he checked, holding it up in front of her. She nodded. The medical wrapper had yet to be invented that could easily be opened while wearing thick gloves, so he quickly stripped them off, then tore open the packet and reached out, gingerly cupping his left hand around her elbow to hold her arm steady.

“This may sting a little,” he warned.

“It’s fine.” She shot him a quick, reassuring, smile. “Do you want me to take off my arm wrap? Would that help?”

Ben was afraid his eyes might cross at the thought of her taking off anything at all, even something as innocuous as an arm wrap - perhaps because it would mean he’d be touching her bare skin, which his gloves had prevented during their earlier hand holding. He bent his head over his task.

“That’s okay,” he said quickly, his voice sounding unusually gruff to his ears. He cleared his throat. “I’ll just…” He dabbed the antiseptic pad to her wound, cleaning it as gently as he could, but making sure to be thorough. She was stoic throughout, not that he’d expected anything less. He felt like he _knew_ her, even without actually knowing anything at all. About either of them.

At last, the wound was cleaned to his satisfaction and he set down the used pad on the table, and picked up the bacta patch. “Almost done,” he told her. He released her elbow, needing both hands to position the patch, and applied it carefully, smoothing his fingertips over the edges to ensure they were properly stuck down. Over the edges, and onto the bare skin of her shoulder. His breath caught.

His hands were actually, visibly trembling. He could see it happening. He didn’t dare look at her face, and had to virtually use his Force powers to pull even one hand away from her. She grabbed his wrist before he managed to raise the other.

“It’s okay,” she said softly. “I feel it too.”

He looked at her then. “You do?”

She smiled at him, but it was shaky, and her eyes were huge. “I mean, we’re probably together, right? We feel like this because we are… like this.”

“Together…” he echoed. Her words made a certain kind of sense to him, but he barely dared to believe it. He couldn’t remember anything about his life, but he didn’t feel like it was this lucky. “Together, how?” he queried. Perhaps she was feeling a different kind of bond – he didn’t want to assume.

Now it was her turn to blush, the delicate colour rising up her cheeks and charming him utterly. “ _‘Together’_ , together,” she repeated, which didn’t sound particularly explanatory, but if you threw in her eyebrow movements and the way her gaze kept dropping to his mouth, definitely suggested that they were on the same page. Possibly even the same paragraph.

He desperately wanted to go along with her theory. To move his hand from her shoulder to the side of her neck, and believe that touching her was something he was allowed to do. But they could be wrong, and he didn’t want to be the cause of regret in Rey.

“We could be related,” he forced himself to point out.

She frowned. “Related how?”

“I have no idea.” He pulled his hand free and rested it awkwardly on his thigh, surreptitiously checking for rings on either his, or her, fingers as he did so. Their hands were bare – but that didn’t really mean anything. Ring-wearing was not a particularly widespread custom, although he suspected that he would be wearing one, had she given him the right. “Cousins?” he ventured. “Perhaps even sib-”

“ _Don’t_ say it!” she interrupted vehemently. “I do NOT feel like your sister!”

“But you could be,” he felt compelled to insist, despite her deepening scowl.

Her face abruptly cleared. “The Wookiee will know!” she exclaimed. She beamed up at him and he felt again that almost physical pull that threatened to derail all his thought processes and a good portion of his bodily functions. “Just a few more hours,” she said. “Then we’ll see.”

He nodded his acquiescence. “In the meantime, why don’t you get some rest?” he suggested. She opened her mouth on a clear protest, but for once he didn’t wait for her words. “It’s the logical thing to do,” he pointed out. “We don’t know what lies ahead – you should recharge while you have the chance.”

She still looked mutinous.

“We may need to fight again,” he added, mentally acknowledging that was rather a low blow, but somehow knowing it would be effective.

She sighed. “Fine. But you should rest, too.” She eyed the couch, which was the only viable sleeping surface available, and then regarded _him_ in a manner he found distinctly alarming.

“I’m fine,” he said quickly. There was absolutely no way he was going to emerge from any kind of ‘simultaneously horizontal’ scenario with even a shred of his dignity intact. Not when just touching her shoulder had virtually short-circuited his whole system.

Fortunately, he was already at one end of the couch, so he stretched his legs out in front of him and crossed them at the ankle, then slid down a bit in his seat and folded his arms, generally adopting what he hoped was an attitude of supreme relaxation.

Rey sniffed and he turned his head to look at her. “If you think there is even the smallest part of me that doesn’t hope you are right about us, you are mistaken,” he promised, then closed his eyes and settled his chin on his chest.

There was a short pause before she replied. “You’re right. I’m sorry.” He kept his eyes firmly shut through the sounds of her trying to get comfortable on the couch, before realizing that, with him taking up the end seat, the space available was definitely not as long as she was.

He swallowed. “You can put your head… I mean, you can use me as a pillow. If you like.” He hoped she would. It may be inappropriate for them to cuddle, but surely _some_ contact would be all right? He would like that very much.

Silence.

“You sure?”

He opened one eye. “Yes.”

“Okay,” she said slowly. “Thank you.”

He closed his eye again as the weight of her head settled carefully on his thigh, and waited while she wriggled herself into a comfortable position and her breathing steadied, before daring another glance.

Her head was turned to the side but she was lying on her back, and he wondered if that was usual for her, or if it was because of the injury to her arm. He wondered if knowing how she slept was something he took for granted before whatever happened to them had happened, and he wondered if this was a world where he was able to verify such information every single night and, if so, he wondered if he could please never leave. He wondered…

He slept.


	3. Chapter 3

Rey woke with the feeling that things were very wrong, but simultaneously extraordinarily right.

She opened her eyes as her recent memories flooded back, and found herself lying on her left side, with her head on Ben’s thigh and her face smooshed against the soft black tunic covering his abdomen. Gods, he smelled good.

She closed her eyes again, fearing that he would notice she was awake and end this moment which she was in no way ready to end. Although, from the position of his hands she deduced that he must be asleep himself, since he’d been profoundly reluctant to touch her while he was conscious, but clearly had no such compunction at the present time.

A secret smile tugged at her lips as she focused on the warmth encompassing her entire hip from where his hand was cupped around it, and the feeling of the fingers of his other hand threaded through the loose hair at the back of her head. She could get used to this. It occurred to her that perhaps she _was_ used to this, and the thought made her smile wider.

There was a sudden tension in the leg beneath her and she held her breath, pulling into her memory the last few precious moments before his hands carefully removed themselves from her person, leaving twin areas of regretful coldness behind them.

Rey waited half a minute, and then rolled onto her back, stretching as she did so before opening her eyes. Ben was steadfastly looking straight ahead, but there was color in his cheeks and she suspected his gaze had only just been redirected.

“Hi,” she smiled up at him.

“Hello.” He shifted uncomfortably and she felt a pang of conscience and sat up, swinging her feet off the couch.

“I’m sorry - your leg must be completely numb!”

“What? Oh – no. No, it’s fine.” He got to his feet anyway, and she felt even more guilty observing his rather stiff gait as he walked to the cockpit, pulling on his gloves as he went.

“We’re almost there,” he called back to her, his voice still a little gruff with sleep. Gods, she loved his voice. It slid in through her ears and trickled down her spine.

“Be there in a minute,” she said, first ducking into the fresher. He’d been right – there was a mirror. She inspected herself as she washed her hands, not sure what to make of her reflection. She looked younger than she’d anticipated – definitely a good few years younger than Ben. She had the fleeting fear that her youth might put him off, but then remembered their conversation, and the look in his eyes as they had roved over her face; the way his fingers had trembled against the bare skin of her shoulder… no. No, a few years’ age difference wasn’t going to deter him. And they didn’t look anything alike, which was encouraging.

Cheered, she exited the fresher and joined him in the cockpit. They had arranged to rendezvous in an uninhabited region of a sparsely populated planet and were currently descending through the atmosphere, the flat, rocky terrain spread out before them. Ben was already handling the controls and seemed perfectly competent, so she let him get on with it, watching through the viewport as they approached what must be the Wookiee’s ship. It didn’t look like much.

“It doesn’t look like much,” Ben observed, his tone distinctly unimpressed as they drew nearer and he gently set down their craft. “I guess Wookiees are as brave as people say.”

“People say that?” Rey queried. She supposed she must have known some Wookiees, since she understood the language, but she couldn’t remember anything about them, beyond their basic appearance. Did that mean her experience was based on specific individuals, who had now been deleted from her mind, rather than being more general knowledge? How did this amnesia thing work, anyway? She shook her head – this was clearly not the time to worry about it.

“Got your blaster?” Ben checked as he stood up, but of course she did. She was carrying the pieces of her saber, too. It may be useless at the moment, but she wanted to keep it with her.

The Wookiee emerged from the rust bucket opposite at the same time they stepped onto solid ground themselves, and he kept coming, his long legs eating up the distance between them, even with his rather shambling stride. Rey had a hand on her blaster and she could sense the tension in Ben, but their hesitance didn’t seem to make any impression on the Wookiee, as the next thing Rey knew she had a face full of fur and a grumbling moan in her ear telling her he’d feared he’d never see her again.

She stood stiffly for the space of half a breath, then relaxed and stepped into the embrace, enjoying the feeling of being held, and by someone who clearly gave a damn about her, until she decided she was selfishly hogging all the shaggy cuddles and pulled back.

Ben was still standing where she’d left him, his weight balanced rather diffidently on one leg, as if he couldn’t decide whether or not to step forward. The Wookiee stared at him for what seemed a long time, before asking if he was staying.

Rey and Ben looked at each other. She wondered if this was the time to explain that they didn’t know anything, or if they should try to find out a bit more information first… They really should have discussed this in advance.

“I’m staying with Rey,” Ben answered eventually.

The Wookiee grunted, then reached out and pulled Ben into a one-armed version of the hug he’d given Rey. She caught a brief flash of Ben’s startled face before it disappeared into a brown furry chest as the Wookiee rumbled something that sounded like ‘welcome home’ at him, but his voice was very low and she couldn’t be sure.

Finally, with a pat on Ben’s back that would have set a slighter man tottering, the Wookiee turned and ambled back to his ship, waving at them to follow.

Over the next half hour they pretty much told him everything, and he told them his name. Though certainly glad to know his name, Rey still felt that overall the exchange had been somewhat lacking. She sent Ben a _‘you should have asked more questions’_ frown, which he countered with an _‘it’s you he likes better’_ eyebrow raise.

Chewie sat ruminating through their facial contortions, before eventually announcing that he needed to consult with someone and lumbering to his feet, telling them to stay put. When asked what they should do, he banged the table in front of them and a holochess game sprang to life. Rey was immediately distracted but then Ben took her hand, distracting her in an entirely different direction.

“Wait!” he called after Chewie, who paused in the doorway. “Look, I get that you don’t want to answer questions until you’ve ‘consulted’, or whatever, but can you just tell us one thing?”

Chewie looked over his shoulder and Rey finished the enquiry.

“Are we related?”

He shook his shaggy head at them and stomped off, leaving Rey and Ben looking at each other.

“Was that a ‘No’?” Rey checked for a second opinion. “That was a ‘No’, wasn’t it?”

“Yes,” Ben grinned at her. “That was a ‘No’.”

They were sitting side by side, holding hands, with no supervision and nothing particular to do, and they weren’t related.

Ben cleared his throat.

“So…” Rey started.

They both looked around awkwardly.

“Want to play chess?” Rey suggested, although she had no idea how to play and the game on the table didn’t even look much like chess now she thought about it, but Ben had clearly spotted something across the room that interested him. He squeezed her hand, then released it and got to his feet. She turned off the chess set.

“Look,” he called, holding up a small metal ball. “It’s a training remote.”

“Training for what?” asked Rey. She had some vague awareness of various games involving balls, but this hardly seemed the time or place…

“ _Jedi_ -training,” Ben replied, waggling his eyebrows at her as she jumped up excitedly. “This is a Marksman-H – it’s old, but these things last forever.” He was turning it over in his hands as he spoke, and it abruptly sprang to life, rising in the air and hovering above them.

Rey walked around it, fascinated. “How does it work?”

For the first time, Ben unholstered his lightsaber, an anticipatory smile crossing his face as he pressed the ignition button. There was an electric whooshing sound, and then red light flared across the room, sparks sputtering from the plasma blades of the distinctive crossguard design.

Rey looked at it slightly askance as it fizzed and crackled. She already knew Ben was a man of a great many talents, but she privately resolved to figure out her own lightsaber for herself. His looked positively unstable and she was a little concerned it would simply explode, although frustratingly she didn’t seem to know enough about lightsabers to make that judgment. She attempted an expression of polite interest so as not to offend him, and looked back at Ben.

He appeared frozen; just standing there staring at the blade in his hand, his earlier smile completely gone. When the training remote fired a bolt at him, he raised his other arm without looking and bounced the bolt back, sending the remote shooting across the room until it hit the far wall and crashed down to the floor, before rolling to a halt against the couch and emitting a sad beep.

Rey raised her eyebrows. “What is it? What’s wrong?”

“I…” he lifted his gaze to her, his face stricken, and she moved quickly to his side, pulling down the arm he had raised and taking his gloved hand between both of her own. They looked at the blade together.

“I’m sure we can fix it,” Rey said reassuringly, deciding he must be upset by its admittedly rough state. “Perhaps it got damaged in the fight?”

“It’s not that.” Ben shut off the saber and took two quick steps forward, setting it down on the table and then stepping back again. She had let go of his hand when he moved and he didn’t return to her, instead standing off to the side so they were in a weirdly spaced out formation – her, Ben, and the saber, like the three points of an equilateral triangle.

“Ben?” she questioned, about to go to him again, but he held out a hand to stop her. Wait… was he _actually_ stopping her? Was he using the Force against her? She focused, but no. He was asking, not forcing. She subsided. “What’s the matter?” she asked again.

He shot her a look she couldn’t even begin to decipher. “What do you know about lightsabers?” he asked. “Their colors, in particular.”

“Not as much as I should,” Rey replied, with some frustration. If she was a Jedi, surely she should know more? “And nothing about colors.”

Ben’s mouth tightened. “The crystal in your saber is blue. Which means the blade will be blue. Blue and green are the most usual colors for a Jedi lightsaber.”

“Okaaay…” nodded Rey. “So, yours is special in some way? Red isn’t common?” She could certainly see why, if they were all as volatile as this one.

“Red isn’t a Jedi color at all,” Ben replied shortly. “If I have a red saber… I am not a Jedi.”

“Huh.” Rey thought about that. “Well, perhaps you took it from someone? Won it in a fight?” Another thought struck her. “Maybe we both did! Maybe that’s why I don’t remember how to rebuild my saber – because I didn’t build it in the first place!”

Ben’s expression lifted a little, but then he frowned again. “I don’t know… it feels like mine. Mostly.”

“Well, what if it is?” Rey asked. “So what if you’re not a typical Jedi? Perhaps you’re something new? Is the color really so important?”

“Red sabers aren’t new,” Ben replied. “They’re old. Ancient, in fact. Red sabers are wielded by the Sith – devotees of the dark side of the Force, and the mortal enemy of the Jedi. Sith are driven by anger, hate, and greed, and they want power above all else. If that saber is mine, I am dangerous to you. If that saber is mine, I should leave.”

“Well, there you are then.” Rey threw up her hands up in a _‘you proved my point’_ kind of way. She strode to the table and picked up the wonky lightsaber for herself, Ben making no move to prevent her. “From what you’re telling me, if you were a Sith, you wouldn’t care about that, would you? About what was best for _me_?”

She switched on the saber; quickly adjusting to a double-handed grip as she felt the power of it. “Whoa!” She frowned in concentration, making a couple of sideways swiping movements. “I can see what you mean, though. It does have a certain… ferocity to it.” She twirled the hilt in her hand, the motion coming very naturally to her. “But that would surely be a plus in battle? I don’t feel that the saber is inherently ‘evil’ or anything like that. Are you sure about this whole ‘red is wrong’ thing?”

“Yes,” he said, although with a little less certainty. He still looked horribly unsure, though. Was still keeping himself apart.

She sighed, and shut the saber off again, leaving it on the table and walking over to him. She was absolutely certain that he could never be a danger to her. Felt it in the deepest part of her soul. She may not have her memories, but she still _believed_. And she believed in him. She took both of his hands in hers, and waited until he met her eyes.

“Ben. What was the very first thing you did when you woke up? Not earlier, on the escape craft,” she added quickly, as his cheeks began to pink, “I mean the first time. What’s your very first memory, in fact?”

“You were fighting,” he said. “You were going to shoot that red-headed man.”

“I _did_ shoot him,” Rey corrected. “Or shot at him, at least. I fired the blaster, is the point. But you stopped it. You used the Force to save his life. Why did you do that?”

Ben frowned down at her. “You didn’t need to kill him. With both of us awake, he was no longer a threat.”

She raised her eyebrows at him.

“Right,” he acknowledged eventually. “Not a very ‘Sith’ thing to do – I see what you’re saying.”

It was progress, but not enough. She started moving backwards, tugging him with her towards the table area. “Look, we can’t know much at this stage. We don’t remember who we are, or what we’ve done, or what our place is in all this, and it seems like we’re going to have to wait a while before anyone wants to tell us.” She reached the couch, and turned them round, pushing him down to sit on the end of it and standing in front of him. “But I don’t feel like I’m a bad person. I’m maybe not a particularly peaceful person…” She grinned down at him, feeling no regret whatsoever about clonking the ginger guy on the head. “But I don’t feel ‘bad’ in the way you’re describing these Sith people.”

“Of course not!” Ben exclaimed. She had released his hands and he brought them both up now, gripping either side of her hips, apparently without thought. “I never intended to suggest anything like that. You are _good_ , Rey. I can feel it.”

“Then so are you,” she promised softly, settling her hands on his shoulders, her thumbs just brushing the sides of his neck. “Your first instinct was to protect life, and mine was to protect _you_. We are connected, Ben. I feel it. As solid and clear as I’m feeling you.”

She’d wanted to emphasize that they were in this together, but her words seemed to draw his attention to the way that they were, in fact, feeling each other, and he jerked his arms out to the sides at once, his eyes wide.

“Put them back,” she said. Time to hammer home her point once and for all.

“I…”

“Put them back.” She smiled down at him. “Please.”

He put them back.

“You want me, don’t you?” she asked.

He flushed. “I would never…”

“I know,” she interrupted him. “I _know_ , Ben. But think about it. You’re twice my size. We both know you could take whatever you want.”

“Rey!” he protested. “Rey, I would _never_ …”

She bent down until their foreheads touched. “What kind of Sith are you?”

There was silence, until at last he exhaled in a long sigh. “I’m not,” he agreed. “I’m not a Sith. I don’t want to hurt anybody, and I especially don’t want to hurt _you_.”

“That’s right,” she murmured. His mouth was right there, and she was beyond tempted to press her lips to his and take their relationship at least one step towards whatever level it had been at prior to this whole amnesia thing. But there was still a lot of tension in the air, and she kind of didn’t want to deprive herself of the full experience. She suspected that kissing Ben would be an all-encompassing sort of thing, and she wanted to be able to enjoy it properly. It occurred to her that there might at least be some benefits to losing your memory – how many couples got to fall in love _twice_?

Clomping steps in the corridor alerted them to Chewie’s approach, and Ben scooted along the couch, pulling her down to sit beside him. She didn’t think he’d have done that prior to the talk they’d just had, and she kind of liked it. Not in general terms, of course – if anyone else tried to pull her down anywhere, she was reasonably confident they’d lose an arm, at minimum (in her own defense, she had warned Ben about the whole _‘not particularly peaceful’_ thing, so she didn’t feel any guilt about the mental violence she was inflicting on potential assailants). But Ben manhandling her a little, in a direction he was sure she wanted to go? Yeah… she could get behind that.

She endeavored to wipe the smile off her face as Chewie rounded the corner and announced he was taking them to a place called ‘Ahch-To’. They asked a series of questions covering the main bases of ‘Where?’, ‘Why?’, ‘Who?’ and also again ‘Why?’, but he wouldn’t tell them anything, mostly glaring at the lightsaber on the table until Ben slid it back into the holster at his hip.

“What do you think?” Ben asked her.

Rey shrugged. “What else are we going to do? The ship we came in probably has a tracker, and whoever those people are who owned it, I can’t imagine they’ll be very happy with us.”

“True.” Ben agreed. “And you trust…?” he made an apologetic face at Chewie as he nodded at him.

Rey thought about it. She _did_ trust him, but then again, it wasn’t just her life on the line. “He hugged us before knowing we’d lost our memories,” she pointed out. "He clearly knows us."

“Also true.” Ben nodded again.

Chewie rumbled that they needed to get moving.

“Why?” Rey demanded. “What’s the hurry? Why won’t you tell us anything?”

She felt a little bad when the poor Wookiee shook his head with increasing agitation. Whoever he had ‘consulted’ with had clearly told him to keep them in the dark.

“This place - Ahch-To. Will we find answers there?” she asked.

He produced a motion half way between a shrug and a nod, which Rey suspected only a Wookiee could really pull off. She looked back at Ben.

“Let’s do it,” he said.

She nodded, and Chewbacca gave an approving roar and led the way to the cockpit. He checked if there was anything they wanted from the escape craft, but they were happy to dump it – the thought of being tracked by whoever was responsible for the ridiculously enormous ship they’d left behind was incentive enough to get away from it, as far and as fast as possible.

The cockpit wasn’t much more impressive than the rest of the ship, appearing randomly stuffed with the cannibalized remains of at least half a dozen other vessels. Also…

“Porgs!” Rey exclaimed.

“What?” Ben asked, pressing in behind her and peering over her shoulder.

Chewie was already in the right hand seat and he waved her to the one beside him, asking if she still remembered how to fly.

“Absolutely, I do!” Rey declared, gingerly picking up the porg that was in her chair and looking around for somewhere to deposit it. Chewie was already starting the engines, so she turned and quickly thrust it into Ben’s hands before sitting herself down and checking over the controls. She could do this.

They were in hyperspace by the time she relaxed enough to properly look around. Ben was sitting behind her, the porg looking completely blissed out on his lap and his hands resting casually on his thighs.

She smiled at him, then turned back to face forwards, watching his reflection in the side viewport as he returned to petting the little creature, as he had clearly been doing all along.

Super-evil. Oh, yeah.


	4. Chapter 4

Ben stared out through the viewport as they approached what looked like nothing more than a moderately sized rock sticking out of an ocean. This was where they were headed? Really? He was glad they’d still have access to the shower he’d just used, as basic as it was, since he doubted the boulder they were aiming toward boasted much in the way of facilities.

“Rey!” he yelled over his shoulder. She’d gone off to shower after him, but she should be done by now and he knew she’d want to see their first view of their destination. Rey. Shower. Shower. Rey. _Damn it!_ He ruthlessly redirected his thoughts for the eleven-thousandth time, mainly by reminding himself that he was sitting next to a seven foot-plus Wookiee who seemed to be a good friend, and he didn’t want to make him uncomfortable by staring too vacantly into space. Or drooling.

“What?” She arrived breathless at his shoulder and he knew without even looking around that her hair wasn’t completely dry, and that the damp ends of the strands she left loose at the back of her head were curling against her neck. More than almost anything he could imagine, he wanted to lift them away and wrap his hand around in their place.

“Hey,” he said.

“Wow!” Rey stared out at the view, clearly more impressed than he was. “It’s beautiful!”

He supposed it was. In a way. Although it was hard to consider anything else ‘beautiful’ when Rey was standing right beside him.

“Here – I’m in your seat,” he said, beginning to rise.

She put a hand on his shoulder and pressed him back down. “No, stay,” she said. “You can pilot just as well as I can.”

He was forced to cough in order to hide how ridiculously flattered he was by this statement, and she thumped his back for him. He grunted. Not one for ‘social patting’, his Rey. He reminded himself to just clear his throat next time – it would be less bruise-inducing.

“And I’d hate to disturb your little friends,” she added, smiling down at the – how many were there now? Three?! – porgs that seemed to have selected him as their cushion of choice. She reached out to stroke one and he almost coughed again, but remembered himself just in time.

“There’s a droid back there,” she announced, taking her hand back to wave it towards the body of the ship. “An R2 unit – did you see it?”

Ben shook his head. He wondered if she was going to sit down, or just stand next to him smelling fantastic the whole time he was trying to land.

“It wouldn’t tell me anything.” She sniffed. “Apparently everything except general information is ‘classified’!”

He could sense the scowl she was directing at Chewie, but the Wookiee seemed impressively impervious. Perhaps Rey’s scowls were something to which one could build up an immunity over time? That would certainly be useful – if he’d had any such tolerance previously, it had regrettably vanished along with his memories.

Before long, they were landing at the base of a series of stone steps, and Chewie looked at them expectantly. They looked back.

“What?” said Rey.

Understanding dawned on Ben. “You want to leave us here,” he said, getting to his feet in a flurry of porgs.

“What?” Rey repeated, assuming a similarly alert stance. “No!”

Chewie growlingly informed them that he would return in a few days, but that he had to go and do something else first.

“We could go with you!” Rey exclaimed. “Where are you going?”

Instead of replying, the Wookiee got up and shambled down the corridor to the main door, opening it and lowering the boarding ramp.

Ben and Rey followed him, but neither made a move to leave the ship. Ben definitely didn’t want to be abandoned on this isolated rock with no exit strategy, and Rey looked ready to hold on with her teeth if necessary.

Chewie regarded their stubborn faces and grumbled, then pointed to the stone steps and announced that they led to the first Jedi temple. And to the oldest living Jedi.

Rey was instantly intrigued, taking a few steps along the ramp and staring up at the cliffs above.

The Wookiee looked as smug as a Wookiee could look. Which was quite a lot, surprisingly - Ben would have expected ‘smug’ to be harder to convey through all that hair. He looked at Rey, sensing that their decision was already screeching its way through a U-turn, and sure enough she turned to him with a conflicted look on her face.

He sighed. “A few days?” he checked with Chewbacca, glad he had at least washed his hair while he had the chance. Chewie grunted, nodded, and suddenly half-hugged him again, then slapped him on the back (right where Rey had so ‘helpfully’ thumped him earlier) and strode back into the ship, with a muttered instruction to ‘wait’.

“Is it okay?” Rey asked, as he walked down the ramp to join her.

Ben looked at her, feeling as if he would follow her to the outer edges of the Outer Rim, so long as she wanted him with her. If her choice was to spend a few days in the middle of nowhere with questionable plumbing… well, he would survive.

“It’s okay,” he said, smiling down at her. She smiled back, then took a step towards him. Then another. Then there were no more steps and she wrapped her arms around his middle and laid her cheek against his chest, and Ben hugged her back and breathed in the scent of her hair and hoped with all his heart that when he got his memories back they would include lots of hugs, because hugs were thus far his absolute favorite thing, other than Rey herself.

Thumping footsteps heralded Chewie’s return, and they slowly drew apart and turned to face him. He didn’t react at all to seeing them so close together, but then again, he was probably used to it – Ben wondered if they were one of those couples overly given to public displays of affection, and then couldn’t decide what he wanted the answer to be.

He focused on the Wookiee instead, who was carrying a pile of seriously ancient looking books. Actual books, not data-tapes or flimsiplast replicas, but hard copies, on paper. He announced that they were Jedi texts and held them out, and Ben stepped forward automatically to take them.

“I can carry some,” Rey said immediately. She did indeed have a bag that Chewie had given her slung across her body, but it already held her broken saber and whatever else she’d put in there and looked pretty full to Ben’s eye. She held out her arms.

“How’s your wound?” Ben asked, nodding towards the bacta patch still in place near her shoulder.

She shrugged dismissively. “It’s fine. Much better.”

“Hmm,” he replied. “Perhaps best not to put any additional strain on it just yet, though?” She opened her mouth, but he pressed on. “We may need to fight again…”

She narrowed her eyes at him. “That’s not going to work every time, you know!”

He grinned at her, and Chewie grunted and then disappeared again, returning moments later carrying a quarterstaff. He held it out to Rey and she took it eagerly, her expression intent as she twirled it around.

“Is this mine? This feels like it’s mine. Is it mine?”

Chewie didn’t respond, but it was clear to Ben that whomever the staff had belonged to previously, it was most definitely hers now.

“Let’s go?” he suggested. The sooner Chewie left for whatever it was he had to do, the sooner he’d be back. With the ship.

Rey nodded, and with a final hug for Chewie, set off up the steps. Ben followed her, both of them pausing part way up to watch as the Millennium Falcon departed - the name of his ship being the sole piece of information Chewie had shared during their journey. Other than that criticism of said ship was in no way acceptable, and that it was the best ship in the galaxy, and that it had done the Kessel run in less than twelve parsecs, and that they should both just shut up already. Since neither of them had actually said a word about the ship, merely sharing a couple of glances over parts which had clearly been cobbled together, it seemed that Wookiees were distinctly defensive about their vehicles. Or at least, this one was.

“I’m glad you’re with me,” Rey said suddenly, as the Falcon vanished from their sight. She turned back to the path and kept climbing, and Ben followed her again, the pile of books in his arms feeling a little lighter. Although that feeling did fade somewhat as they continued to climb what seemed a truly excessive number of steps. On the plus side, the weather was fine - the sun was shining, but there was a breeze, so it wasn’t too hot. This place may be primitive, but at least it had a decent climate. And porgs. The little creatures were everywhere - Chewie must have been here before as this was presumably where the infestation of the Falcon had originated.

Eventually, they came to a group of stone huts, most of which appeared to be in reasonable condition – with the notable exception of one, that looked as if it had been completely blown apart. They approached it cautiously, stepping through what was left of the doorway and looking around. Rey was frowning, so Ben set down the books in the shelter of a conveniently located pile of rubble, and went to her side.

“What is it?” he asked. He wanted to take her hand, but she was clearly concentrating and he was wary of distracting her.

“I don’t know,” she murmured. She frowned harder, turning in a slow circle. “I feel like there’s something here – a disturbance of some kind. Don’t you feel it?”

He was finding it hard to feel anything at all beyond the overwhelming desire to take her hand. He reached out…

There was a shocked noise from nearby and they both spun round to see a man in Jedi robes staring at them as if he couldn’t believe his eyes. The man raised his hand towards them and Ben immediately raised his own, stepping in front of Rey, as something instantly became clear to him – his intervention to save the red-headed man when they first woke had been based entirely on risk-assessment, and not on an inherent reluctance to cause harm. He would kill to protect his own life. He would _annihilate_ to protect Rey’s.

“Hey!” Rey batted at his shoulder and the man - who was presumably the Jedi Chewie had mentioned - slowly lowered his arm as she sidestepped so she could see what was going on. Ben stayed on full alert as she examined the stranger. He completely respected her fighting skills and her right to make her own choices, but if there was any sign of an attack it was going to have to reach her through him, if it reached her at all.

“Hello,” Rey addressed the man. She glanced at Ben and rolled her eyes, grabbing the wrist of his raised arm and pulling it down. “You’ll have to forgive my… Ben,” she said, and any concerns he might have had about being restrained were immediately tsunamied into nothingness by his delight at being so described.

“You’re both here,” the stranger said, wonderingly.

Ben and Rey looked at each other.

“What?” said Rey.

“Do you know us?” asked Ben.

“What?” said the man, his eyebrows rising.

Everyone looked confusedly at everyone else.

The man seemed to turn his gaze inward for a long moment, then he gestured to them to follow him. “Come,” he said. “I suspect we have much to talk about.”

As with Chewbacca, it turned out to be them who did most of the talking. They settled not far from the huts, the older man slipping surprisingly easily into a cross-legged pose that Ben’s more close-fitting apparel would not so readily allow. He sat on a rock instead, Rey dropping comfortably to the grass beside him. She was cross-legged, too. For the first time, Ben wondered why his own outfit was so restrictive.

“So, let me get this straight,” the man – Luke – attempted to summarize, as their tale drew to a close. “Neither of you remember anything before coming round in the throne room of a Mega-class Star Destroyer, surrounded by dead guards, and with another body that you presume to have been the leader -”

“Half of it was still on the throne,” Rey inserted helpfully. “At least, it was when I first woke - I think it slithered off later.”

“Right,” Luke acknowledged, looking somewhat disconcerted. She smiled at him encouragingly and he eventually carried on. “And there was a broken lightsaber nearby?” He looked at the saber in question, which Rey had produced from her bag at the appropriate point of their story.

“Yes,” agreed Ben. “We think it must be Rey’s, as there was already a saber on my belt.” He left that one where it was, unwilling to reveal the blade to the Jedi as yet, despite Rey’s theories. The color still concerned him, but he could not deny the truth that was his connection with Rey, so there must be an explanation beyond the obvious. Luke’s eyes flitted to it anyway, but he made no comment.

“And then the pair of you fled the ship, after first knocking a man with red hair unconscious.”

“He was going to kill Ben.” Rey’s tone was sharp with remembered rage, and Ben put his hand on her shoulder to remind her that he was safe, and by her side. She leaned against his leg.

Luke swallowed, doing an excellent impression of a man who would rather look at almost anything else than what was in front of him. “Indeed,” he said. “How hard did you hit him, do you think? Would he have been out for minutes, or are we talking a more serious concussion?”

“He was going to kill Ben,” Rey said again.

“I see,” Luke said slowly, clearly divining correctly what Ben had already observed - that she had pulled the blow only the barest minimum to comply with his request, and that the man, whoever he was, was going to be woozy for days, if not weeks.

“And what about the two of you?” Luke questioned. “Do you have any head injuries? Any bumps or trauma beyond the bruise above Rey's eye, that might be a factor in all this?”

Ben and Rey looked at each other in matching startlement. Why had that possibility never occurred to them? Rey’s hand flew to the back of her head, feeling around, but Ben already knew she had no lumps, from when he’d woken earlier with his hand in her hair. She clearly came to the same conclusion and beckoned imperiously to him, reaching up with both arms. He bent forward obediently, closing his eyes as her hands plunged into his hair, and torn between wanting her touch to linger, and trying to hold back a moan of pleasure which would be woefully inappropriate in front of this man who was still virtually a stranger to both of them. She may have had the same thought, as she kept her touch clinical. Mostly.

“Nothing,” she said, pulling back, and he sat up again, opening his eyes to the sight of Luke’s slightly green looking face. “And my head feels completely normal,” Rey added. “Apart from not having any memories in it, I mean. I don’t have a headache.” She looked up at Ben and frowned. “Do you have a headache? I never asked if you were all right. You looked after my arm, with the antiseptic and the bacta patch, and I never asked if you were all right. Are you all right?”

He smiled down at her. “I’m fine. And I don’t have a headache, either.” He turned to Luke. “I, too, felt completely normal on waking – apart from the memory loss.” That was probably why it hadn’t occurred to them to check for head bumps before now.

Luke returned to his summary with the dogged air of one who has started down a path and is damned well going to get to the end, no matter what distractions are thrust upon him. “Then you rendezvoused with Chewbacca, who consulted with someone, you don’t know who, before bringing you here. And who has now gone off to do something, you don’t know what, but intends to return here in a few days time.”

“That’s about it,” Rey agreed, sounding calmer now the conversation had moved away from talk of them being injured or killed. Or, rather, talk of _Ben_ being injured or killed. He definitely got the impression that she would react much more aggressively to threats against his person, than to herself. Which was fair enough, he supposed, as he felt the exact same way about her.

“And now,” Rey continued. “Perhaps you can fill us in on some of the missing details?” Ben nodded his agreement with this request. “Like who we are, and what we were doing on that Mega-wotsit ship in the first place?” Rey finished.

The Jedi remained ominously silent for a worrying length of time. “I will have to meditate on this,” he said, eventually. “But first…” he looked at Ben. “You need to get out of those clothes.”

Ben’s eyebrows rose. Was the ability to comfortably sit cross-legged _so_ essential to life on this lump of rock?

“Especially the belt,” Luke went on – which did perhaps suggest an alternate motivation, as it wasn’t really the belt that was giving Ben trouble. Indeed, he rather liked the belt.

“But you’d best destroy everything, to be safe,” Luke finished, decisively.

Destroy? That seemed very extreme. “Why?” Ben demanded, wondering why Rey wasn’t also questioning these bizarre instructions.

Luke frowned. “How much to tell you…” he pondered aloud.

Ben sat forward and Rey did the same beside him, her hand gripping his leg in her eagerness. So far, no one had told them anything at all – they were desperate for any kind of information.

“You abandoned the escape craft fearing it may have a tracking device,” Luke began, disappointingly - that was hardly new information; they’d told _him_ that. “The same may be true of your clothes,” he said to Ben, which was still more of a guess than it was an informative statement.

Luke rose to his feet with surprising grace and pointed to one of the stone huts. “You’ll find a chest full of Jedi robes in there.”

Ben stood also, taking the hand that Rey held out, and pulling her up with him. He regarded Luke doubtfully – there was no way anything of his was going to fit. Ben didn’t think of himself as a vain person particularly – Rey didn’t seem bothered by the scar on his face, so he had decided not to worry about it – but he didn’t want to look ridiculous.

“Don’t worry, they’re not mine,” Luke added, a quirk to his lips showing that he had followed Ben’s train of thought. “There’s a whole range of things - the Caretakers keep them in good order.”

“Caretakers?” Rey queried. Finally, she had a question! “There are other people on the island?”

“Not people,” Luke replied, cryptically. “You’ll see. Be sure to destroy everything you’re currently wearing,” he reiterated to Ben, before leaving them and heading off up the path leading further into the island.

Ben turned to Rey, his mouth opening on a question as to why _his_ clothing was so suspect, but hers was not.

“You heard the man,” said Rey.


	5. Chapter 5

“It’s the Force, isn’t it?” Luke said glumly, slumping sideways to lean back on one arm as the spirit of his old master appeared before him, already cackling. They were sitting in front of the tree they’d destroyed the night before – something he rather regretted now, since it seemed there might be a use for the books after all.

“The exploded lightsaber; the lack of head injuries; the fact it’s happened to both of them… It’s the Force. It has to be.”

Yoda would presumably stop chortling at some point, but it certainly didn’t seem to be imminent.

“Which means I can’t tell them anything,” Luke begrudgingly acknowledged. He glared at Yoda, in a _‘Whose idea was this?’_ kind of way, then got to his feet, pacing restlessly back and forth.

“It’s not right!” he protested, frustrated. “They would never act like… _that_ , if they had their memories.”

Yoda’s chuckles finally abated and he fixed Luke with a quizzical gaze. “Hate each other before, did they?”

“Well…” Luke scowled, the vision of his student and his nephew holding hands in the firelight forever seared into his brain. Although he was horrifyingly confident that he was going to be exposed to much worse over the days ahead. His pacing brought him to a rocky obstacle and he turned around and stomped back the other way.

“He killed his father, Master. He killed _Han_!”

Yoda’s face softened. “Sorry I am for your loss, young Skywalker. But second chances, there are. Yes. Second chances for you both.”

Luke stared at him for a long moment, then sat down again with a muffled, “ _Oh_.”

Yoda reached out and poked him with his cane. “Lost Ben Solo, you did. Hmm. Found you again, he has.”

They sat in silence as Luke pondered that. Ben and Rey growing closer was a double-edged sword… if Kylo Ren returned along with their memories, there was the risk she might follow him. She’d already shown a lack of hesitation towards the dark side that had alarmed Luke considerably. But then again, she also reminded him of his younger self in many ways – he too had felt the pull of the dark side, but only to protect those he loved. Never for personal gain. And in truth, it was hard to see Rey choosing that path. She would fight, that much was exceedingly clear, but his instincts told him she would always fight for a cause; not from greed, or a lust for power.

As for Ben… Luke was thankful that Chewie had brought him up to speed on the First Order during his last visit, so he’d been able to make sense of the story he’d just been told, more or less. The fact that Ben’s first action had been to save a life, even the life of a man such as General Hux, did impress Luke greatly. It seemed Rey had been right – there was still light in him. Perhaps more than they ever could have hoped.

And what of him – Luke Skywalker, Jedi Master? He had failed Ben. Rey had told him as much, and she had been right there, too. Could he do better this time? Did he even deserve to try?

“I still think the Jedi should end,” he said, eventually.

Yoda grunted. “Learn from failure, we must,” he said. “Too concerned, the Jedi became, about the balance without. Teach these two, you can, about the balance within.”

Luke sighed. He wondered if this had been Leia’s hope in sending them to him, for it could only have been Leia that Chewbacca had consulted. Luke had felt her awakening the night before, and then a long period of fear – he’d actually been on the brink of trying to project himself to her, when a strange sort of calm had descended. A calm that he now realized must have come from her discovery of Snoke’s death, and Hux’s incapacitation. Not to mention Kylo Ren being so dramatically taken out of the picture.

He marveled at his sister. To entrust him with her only child a second time, after the devastating results of his previous failure, was a tremendous act of faith. Although, Leia was nothing if not a pragmatist – she’d no doubt also wanted to get Kylo Ren as far from the Resistance and the First Order as possible, and with people who had a hope of containing him should his memories return.

“Twisted by Snoke his whole life, the boy has been,” Yoda said. “Interested, are you, to see what lies beneath?”

“Yes, all right, I’m going,” Luke agreed, getting to his feet with a groan – his bones felt old and his joints positively creaking. “But I don’t suppose they’ll be happy that I can’t tell them anything.” Although, from what he’d seen, they were too focused on each other to worry over much about anything else. “I hope Ben is getting rid of those clothes,” he muttered, as he started on his way back down the hill. “The last thing I need is the First Order turning up here!”

Yoda chuckled again. “Ah, young Skywalker. Long alone you have been.”

Luke looked round at him questioningly. His image was already fading, only his mischievous expression still clearly visible as he delivered his parting words. “For this, on the girl Rey you can rely.”

Luke paled, then turned and hurried towards the steps, the sound of cackling still echoing behind him.

 

***

 

Rey knelt before the clothing chest, discarding item after item… “Too short; too shapeless; too narrow…” Although, on second thoughts… she held up the wrap-around shirt and regarded it consideringly.

“Um… I don’t think that would fasten properly?” Ben’s voice came tentatively from behind her.

He couldn’t see her face so she felt free to grin as wickedly as she liked; a fact she took full advantage of as she shoved the shirt back. There were several things in here very like what _she_ was wearing and she wondered if she’d been to the island before – if this very chest was, in fact, where her own clothes had come from. Hopefully Luke would bring them up to date once he’d finished his meditation.

It dawned on her that the robes were organized in size order (or at least, they had been before she started rummaging), so she leaned right into the chest and dug down to the bottom, eventually finding a set that should fit even someone of Ben’s tremendous dimensions.

She stood up, the thought abruptly striking her that he might have started stripping off already. She tightened her grip on the clothes in her hands; concerned that the sight of a suddenly topless Ben might cause her to drop more than her jaw.

With a deep, fortifying breath, she turned around… but he was still tragically over-dressed; not even his belt had gone. His gaze was fixed intently on her face, his dark eyes roaming her features.

“Rey,” he said, his voice so low it seemed to echo in her chest. She clenched her fingers in the fabric she held. She wasn’t going to drop anything just from him saying her name. She wasn’t. She was a grown woman.

“Can I kiss you?” he asked.

 _Gods_ , these robes were doomed. “Yes!” she exclaimed immediately. She took two quick steps forward, and started to stretch up to him, but her hands were full, and that was not going to help things to go the way she hoped. She looked around desperately, then darted the few steps to the window and dumped the clothes on the low bench there, before sprinting back, virtually skidding to a halt in front of him.

“Yes,” she said again, just in case there had been any doubt about the first one.

He was smiling, but it was a nervous smile, and she could feel the tremor in the hand he brought up to cup her face.

“You’ve probably kissed me a thousand times,” she said, encouragingly.

“I wish I could remember even a single one of them,” he murmured, his eyes roving over her face before settling on her mouth. He lowered his head, and she found her eyes drifting closed despite her best efforts to keep them open.

When his lips finally touched hers, she felt it down to the very essence of who she was. It was the gentlest brushing of skin against skin, but it felt like a circuit had been closed, a circle completed. Since almost the first moment she had awoken, she'd felt connected to this man, but nothing had compared to this level of actual, physical connection.

She raised her hands to his chest, her fingers curling into the fabric of his tunic as he retreated, but only the slightest distance, and she knew that he was waiting for her to bridge the gap this time – to show him that he was wanted, as much as he himself wanted; and she could sense somehow that this was hugely important to him.

‘Not a problem’, she thought, stretching up onto her toes, and also leaning into him, resting her weight against him and knowing… _knowing_ that he could, and would support her. That she could lean on him and he would not fall. Would not let her go. Would not leave… and she didn’t know why that mattered so much, but it did… _it did_.

His thumb brushed across her cheekbone as their mouths met again, and she pushed into the kiss this time, sliding one hand up around his neck and into his hair… his incredibly thick and soft hair, that felt so smooth and strong as she wound it around her fingers the way she’d wanted so desperately to do earlier, when she was checking his head for bumps and had had to work so hard to keep her touch even _mostly_ clinical.

Despite being sure they’d done this many times before – and _Gods_ , how had they managed to get anything else done at all, when there was this? – it still felt completely new and almost dangerously exciting. With her eyes still closed, Rey’s other senses were absurdly heightened, and she was hyper aware of the feel of his mouth against hers as they met and parted, and met and parted, adjusting their positions slightly each time so that now it was his top lip edging between her own, now hers catching between his, and each contact lasted a fraction longer than the previous one, and with each separation their mouths opened just a little bit wider, until at last the angle was exactly right and he sucked slightly on her bottom lip and she gasped, her fingers tightening reflexively in his hair and tugging on it, and he released her mouth with a groan and slid both arms around her body, and she got her first real proof of the incredible strength suggested by his broad frame as he buried his face in her neck and held her against him, and at least one of them was trembling, but she couldn’t have said who.

“ _Rey_.” His voice was low and shaken and she unwound the fingers that were pulling on his hair and petted it instead, stroking her hand repeatedly over the back of his head and his neck, and murmuring soothing noises as much to herself as to him because this was almost too much, this was overwhelming, and yet she knew that there was more, and she wanted more, she wanted all of it, all of _him_.

“ _Ben_ ,” she said softly, when words once more became things that she was able to form. He rumbled back at her, but didn’t raise his head, and his hold didn’t loosen even the slightest bit. She was dimly aware that they should really get on with the task that Luke had assigned to them - she certainly didn’t want whoever had been in charge of that Mega-wotsit ship tracking them here - but he had both arms wrapped tightly around her and she may not have her memories, but it was hard to believe that she’d ever in her life felt so cherished or so secure.

Eventually, their pulses slowed enough that their hearts stopped feeling as if they were trying to swap places, and with a final, shy kiss to the side of her neck Ben straightened up, his arms loosening but staying looped around her, as she let her hands move back to his chest.

He smiled down at her.

She smiled back. “Wow,” she said.

His expression became simultaneously pleased, proud, and bashful in a combination the charm of which had probably never been seen within a dozen parsecs - in her, admittedly already significantly biased, opinion.

“I suppose I should…” He nodded towards the pile of robes by the window, without actually taking his eyes away from her face.

“Yes,” she agreed, not even glancing at them. He was so attractive, she didn’t really think it was reasonable to expect her to look away from his face – unless it was to survey other parts of him, but she was too close to be able to do that at the moment. If being ‘too close’ to him was even a thing, which she seriously doubted.

Her hand rose without her instruction, one finger reaching up to trace the long scar that ran from above his eyebrow, right across the side of his face and down, until it disappeared into his collar.

He flushed, pulling away a little and ducking his head.

“No!” she said, more sharply than she’d intended, the fingers of her other hand clutching at his tunic to keep him in place. “Ben, no,” she added, more softly. “Please.”

He managed to look at her through his lashes, which was no mean feat for someone more than half a foot taller.

She cupped his face and stroked her thumb across the scar. “Does it hurt?”

“No.” He shook his head, but not nearly enough to dislodge her hand. “No, that one’s just unsightly.”

Her eyes narrowed immediately. “That one?”

He smiled wryly. “I’m not a pretty sight, I’m afraid, Rey. Whatever kind of life I’ve led, it doesn’t seem to have been a gentle one.”

She stepped back, pulling free of his hold and waving a hand at his upper body, intending to encompass the tunic, plus however many layers he had on underneath – which seemed like a ridiculous number, come to think of it. She’d never known a man so comprehensively covered up. Admittedly, her knowledge only extended to two men and a Wookiee, but still. (She didn’t count the ginger guy, because he had tried to kill Ben, and therefore Did. Not. Count.)

“Off!” she instructed, firmly.

His eyebrows rose.

“Please,” she added.

His lips twisted, but he reached for the fastenings obediently.

“Sorry,” she said, although she didn’t mean it even a little bit.

“It’s fine,” he said. “I just…” He paused with his hands on his belt and offered another wry smile. “This is not the way I thought this would go.”

She chuckled, acknowledging the truth of his words, and reached out to take the belt as he removed it, and then the tunic, as it swiftly followed. She folded the tunic and was debating whether to step away to put it on the bench now, or wait until she’d got the rest, when it occurred to her that they were going to destroy everything anyway. She took the shirt he was by now holding in front of him, and dropped the lot on the floor. He looked taken aback but then nodded, clearly following her line of thought, and threw his last layer down to join the pile.

Rey took a long moment in which a corner of her brain hoped that her mouth wasn't gaping open and that she was remembering not to drool. The rest would probably have been full of awe-struck swearing, had she still retained the knowledge of how language worked, or what even vowels were anyway.

She stared.

"Rey?" he said, uncertainly.

She dragged her eyes away from his -  _Gods,_  absolutely incredible  _everything_  - and up to his face, and it was the increasingly uncomfortable expression she found there that managed to snap her out of it.

"Right," she said. "Yes. Sorry." Drawing on every last scrap of lust-hazed willpower, she forced herself to close her eyes for a few seconds, in order to clear her head. “I have to tell you, though,” she couldn’t help adding, as her eyes decided they’d been denied long enough and eagerly flung themselves back open, “If unsightly means ‘unpleasant to look at’, then you should stop using that word right now, because it does NOT apply to you.”

Taking a significantly deep breath, she stepped forward and gripped his arm to turn him towards the window so she could see better, sternly reminding herself that he wasn't just a body to her, no matter how gorgeous. He was... Ben.

She looked again.  _Looking,_  instead of staring this time, and he hadn’t been joking – there were indeed several scars, of varying severity. She reached out towards the one on his abdomen, but didn’t touch. “This one is painful?” she asked. It certainly looked it – she couldn’t imagine what had caused such damage.

“A little,” he replied.

“Hmm.” She gave him her best ‘I am extremely dubious about your recent statement’ face, but his eyes were fixed straight ahead, so it was wasted on him. She sniffed to get her point across, then examined the scar on his shoulder, which didn’t seem to trouble him, and finally turned her attention to the long wound that ran all the way from above his eyebrow, down to his chest. Focused now, she turned him a little sideways to get more light on it, and touched it gently, her finger picking up the path from where she’d left off the first time, half way down his cheek, and following it across his jaw, and down the side of his neck. He swallowed, and she suddenly noticed that his skin was breaking out in goosebumps.

“Oh, I’m sorry!” she exclaimed, quickly pulling her hand back. “You must be cold – I wasn’t thinking!” She turned towards the bench to pick up the robes she’d set out for him, but he grabbed her wrist before she’d even begun to move away.

“Rey,” he said, as she raised her eyes, and he was no longer looking straight ahead, but right down into the depths of her need. “Rey, I’m not cold.”

And just like that her focus shifted back, and she was no longer checking injuries on the upper torso of someone she cared very much about; but standing in front of a bare-chested man who fulfilled every fantasy she could ever imagine having.

She started to reach out with the hand he had caught and he immediately relaxed his grip so as not to restrict her, but he didn’t let go, and when she spread her palm flat against his chest, his own hand slid down from her wrist to cover it, and it was exactly at that moment that there was a sudden harsh noise from the doorway and they both turned their heads to see Luke already lowering the arm he must have raised upon seeing them.

He shook his head, grimacing. “I’m going to run out of huts!” he muttered, turning and stomping off. “Rey!” he called, once he was a few feet away. “Bring those clothes to the fire.”

Rey and Ben looked back at each other, their hands still pressed together over Ben’s ridiculously broad chest. A fleeting thought about size difference caused her to glance down at herself, and it seemed he was quick to follow her gaze, since when she looked back up his eyes were still very much lingering. Without overthinking it too much, she grabbed his free hand with hers and brought it to her breast, pressing her own hand over it just as he had done to hers. The heartbeat under her palm jumped and raced, and she looked up to see an expression of total shock on his face as he stared down at his hand's new location.

She reached up and pressed a swift kiss to his parted lips. “Later,” she promised, then pulled herself away and scooped up his discarded clothes. “Finish getting changed,” she prompted, as he was now just staring at the hand she’d grabbed, flexing the fingers as if checking it was still operational.

“Ben,” she said, and he looked at her and blinked.

“Yes. Right. Yes.” He still looked dazed to a level that made her feel warm and somewhat proud – she hadn’t given much thought to her appearance, but she was certainly very glad that he seemed to like it so much.

“Bring the rest of your things out once you’ve changed, okay?” she said from the doorway.

He shook himself, then nodded and reached for the fastenings of his trousers, at which point she decided she’d better leave while she still had any willpower left to speak of.

She found Luke poking viciously at a fire nearby, and started throwing the clothes onto it, although it did seem rather a shame. Still, she was sure Ben would look just as good in Jedi robes. Or nothing at all.

She stepped a little closer to the flames to give an excuse for her pink cheeks, and another question occurred to her.

“Which hut should Ben and I sleep in?” she asked, not knowing if others had specific purposes.

Luke groaned.


	6. Chapter 6

Ben sat down on the bench as soon as Rey had left the hut. He needed to sit down in order to take off his boots - it wasn’t necessarily a sign of weakness. Really.

He looked at his hand again. The hand that she had put… _Gods_ , what was the matter with him? Even before she had done… _that_ , his emotions had been all over the place. Did he have no self-control at all? Feeling the curve of her breast under his palm hadn’t even been the most shocking part, although he knew he would revisit that memory many, many times. Kissing her had been - he let his mental thesaurus run through every superlative he knew, and then continued his train of thought – but just that, just kissing her, with her arms around him and her hands in his hair, had been enough to throw him into absolute turmoil. You’d think no one had ever touched him before, but that was clearly ridiculous… wasn’t it?

He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. Could they be wrong? About their relationship? He felt so utterly connected to Rey, and yet surely, _surely_ , he could not have forgotten this? He ran his hands through his hair, lingering over where she had stroked it. Just that. Just Rey, in his arms and stroking his hair, had been pretty much the closest thing to perfection he could imagine. Her tugging on it had been… well, it had been good. Very good. But almost… too much. Gods, he was hopeless.

Shaking his head at himself, Ben stood up. He’d better finish getting changed, or Rey would surely be back for his trousers herself. And while the thought of that certainly held an appeal that almost made him need to sit down again, he knew full well that he wasn’t ready for it just yet.

A few minutes later, he emerged from the hut with his hands full, and followed the sounds of Luke’s grumbling to find the fire he had mentioned. The top half of his old outfit was already mostly ash, so Ben threw on the rest and moved round to sit next to Rey on the long stone bench that curved around it. Typical. Finally he had clothes that allowed freedom of movement, and already the cross-legged phase seemed to have passed.

He did feel more comfortable, though, he had to admit. He wondered why he had been wearing such a different outfit before – one that seemed expressly designed to keep the wearer in a constant state of overheated irritation. He frowned; there was so much they didn’t know. Hopefully Luke would be able to tell them something.

“I can’t tell you anything,” Luke announced abruptly.

Ben could sense Rey rolling her eyes beside him, but it wasn’t enough and he found himself on his feet without consciously deciding to stand. A wariness entered Luke’s eyes, but he held out a hand placatingly.

“Well, I can’t tell you _much_ ,” he amended.

Ben waited.

“You’re looming,” Rey said, grabbing the back of his tunic and tugging. He allowed her to pull him down again, but kept his eyes fixed on Luke.

The Jedi sighed. The daylight was beginning to fade and his face looked even craggier in the glow from the fire.

“What do you know about the Force?” he asked them.

Rey answered immediately, “It’s the energy between all things - a balance that binds the universe together and…” she trailed off.

Luke looked amused. “And?”

“… makes things float?” she finished, uncertainly.

Luke chuckled, and Ben turned to look at her.

“What?” she protested. “I don’t know – it’s just what’s in my head!” She shrugged. “I can’t remember how it got there.” Gods, she was adorable.

“And what about you, Ben?” Luke asked.

“I agree about the energy and balance,” he replied. He noticed a bowl filled with what looked like dried kelp sitting off to the side and raised his hand, using the Force to lift it and bring it to Rey, inclining his head towards her. “And I can make things float.”

She grinned at him around a mouthful of seaweed.

“And can _you_ do that, Rey?” Luke asked, indicating the bowl she was now holding in both hands.

She pulled it defensively closer to her chest. “I fink so,” she mumbled, chewing hard.

It occurred to Ben to be surprised that they hadn’t attempted to test her powers before now – but then again, they had been pretty busy, one way and another. She didn’t seem to doubt that she had them, though, and it felt right to him, that the two of them would be balanced in this. He didn’t doubt her, either.

After swallowing, Rey set the bowl down carefully on the other side of her to Ben, and reached out a hand towards a rock a little distance away.

She frowned, staring at the rock as if she expected lasers to come from her eyes and blast it. Ben suppressed a smile, but before either he or Luke could offer any suggestions, her face cleared and the rock started to rise.

Ben gasped, and it immediately fell again as she turned to him. “What is it?” she demanded. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.” He shook his head, as Luke also regarded him curiously. “I’m sorry. I just…” He waved a hand towards his temple. “I could feel that.”

“Interesting,” Luke said. “Try it again, Rey.”

Rey lifted her eyebrows in query at Ben, and he nodded. “Yes,” he said. “Try it again. My apologies for distracting you.”

She flashed a smile at him, and then looked back at her rock of choice. This time he was ready, and frowned in concentration as he attempted to analyze what he was sensing.

“What do you feel, Ben?” Luke asked, and Rey held the rock steady in the air but also turned to him.

He grimaced. “It’s difficult to describe,” he admitted. “It’s almost as if she’s somehow pulling something from my mind.”

The rock fell again, Rey’s face falling with it. “You mean I’m using the Force through you?” she questioned. “I’m not doing it myself?” She looked very disappointed.

“No!” Ben exclaimed quickly. “No.” He shook his head for added emphasis. “It was mostly just that first time – I barely felt it the second, and it had faded before you let the stone go. You’re not drawing power from me.”

“She’s drawing knowledge,” Luke interjected.

Knowledge. That felt right. “Yes,” agreed Ben. “Yes, I think so.”

He watched Rey’s face as she pondered this.

“But how can I do that?” she asked. “How can I take information from your head, without even realizing I’m doing it?” She turned to Luke. “Is this a Jedi mind thing? Like controlling people?”

She looked a little alarmed at the prospect of control, but didn’t seem to question that she needed guidance to access her powers, at least initially. Ben definitely got the feeling that she hadn’t been using them for long before their memories were wiped – she knew they were there, but using them didn’t come so instinctively to her as it did to him. He felt as if he’d been using the Force all his life. It was as natural as combing his hair.

Luke screwed up his face. “Not generally,” he said. “It’s a difficult question.”

Ben growled. He’d had just about enough of being kept in the dark. “What’s the answer?” he demanded.

Luke sighed. “Let me explain.”

“Please do,” Ben said shortly. Rey put her hand over his, where it was clenched on the bench between them. He looked down at it, then up at her face. Into her eyes. She had beautiful eyes. Clear, and bright, and full of warmth and… acceptance. She smiled at him and slowly he felt his fingers relax, until he could turn his hand over to grip hers. They looked back at Luke together.

He cleared his throat. “Right. Well, we’ve established that neither of you have significant head injuries,” he started. “And whatever happened, happened to both of you at the same time, and may well have involved an exploding lightsaber. And you’re both Force users. Is that a fair assessment?”

They both nodded. Ben’s mind raced ahead.

“You think it’s the Force,” he said, softly. “That’s why you don’t want to tell us anything. You think the Force did this for a reason.”

“That’s not how the Force works!” complained Rey.

Luke snorted. “Who’s the expert now?” he asked. “When we use the term, we’re generally referring to the Living Force. That’s what you feel all around you. But the ancient Jedi texts spoke also of another aspect - the Cosmic Force, which has an awareness, and a purpose, and a will. I can only assume that is what’s at work here.”

There was silence for a while as they digested that.

“Perhaps there’s more information in these texts you mention?” Rey suggested. “Do you have them? Chewie said the first Jedi Temple was here.”

“Ah,” said Luke, shifting on his end of the bench. “About that…” He looked off into the middle distance, then to the far distance, then at the fire. “I’m afraid they were destroyed.”

“Destroyed?” Rey echoed.

“Yesterday,” Luke added, appearing to address one of the huts by this point.

“Yesterday!” Ben repeated. That was an odd coincidence. A little _too_ odd, perhaps.

“How did that happen?” Rey asked.

“Lightning,” Luke explained. Although it seemed ‘prevaricated’ would be a better word, as he still wouldn’t look at them and was now giving all his attention to Rey’s bowl of kelp.

Until suddenly he did, raising his head and pulling in a deep breath, before speaking again. “No,” he said, almost to himself. “No, I’m not doing that.” He briefly closed his eyes before continuing. “I was going to destroy them,” he admitted.

Rey gasped. “ _You_ were?”

“Yes,” Luke confirmed. “I’ve attempted it many times.”

Ben could feel Rey’s confusion, which was echoed by his own. “Why?” he asked.

The Jedi signed, looking suddenly ten years older. “I have long believed that the Jedi Order must end,” he told them. “It’s why I came to this place.”

“But, what about us?” Rey demanded. “We have lightsabers. We have the Force. Are we not Jedi, too?”

“I… you could be,” Luke acknowledged, eventually. “But not in the old way, I hope. Something new.”

“I said that!” Rey exclaimed excitedly, releasing Ben’s hand and smacking him in the chest. She no doubt meant it lightly, but Ben was torn between trying not to grunt, and peering at her arms wondering where the hell she was packing all the muscle. She was a force all by herself, was Rey. “When you were freaking out about your lightsaber,” she went on. “I _said_ you could be something new!” She beamed triumphantly at him, and surely she had the brightest smile in the whole galaxy. He stared at it like a besotted fecklen until her words properly registered and he turned to Luke, braced for the questions that must surely follow.

But Luke had resumed poking at the fire and didn’t say a word. Which meant he knew. Ben’s eyes narrowed. Luke knew he had a red lightsaber, and he didn’t want to talk about it. _Gods_ , this was infuriating.

“Oh!” Rey grabbed Ben’s arm in sudden excitement. “We have books!” she exclaimed. “Chewbacca gave them to us.” She turned to look at him. “Where did you…?”

He waved a hand towards the obliterated hut and started to rise to his feet, but she’d already shot off, ignoring Luke’s protests that the ‘sacred Jedi texts’ were unique, and that not just any old books would do. For a guy who'd wanted to destroy them, he certainly seemed to throw a lot of respectful adjectives around.

His face when she returned made Ben feel a bit better about being kept in the dark himself, as never had a man looked so utterly flabbergasted.

“The original Jedi texts,” he murmured reverently, staring wide-eyed as she stood in front of him. “But how did you…?”

“I don’t know,” she said. “Chewie gave them to us.”

“But how did he…?”

“I don’t know,” she said again, shrugging. “I have no idea.”

Ben smirked. Finally someone else looked as frustrated by their memory loss as they were.

“May I?” Luke reached out towards the books, but Rey regarded him dubiously, making no move to hand them over.

“You were going to destroy them,” she pointed out. “You thought you _had_ destroyed them.”

“No, I couldn’t do it,” Luke denied. “Each time I’ve tried, I lost my resolve at the last moment. I don’t think I’d ever have gone through with it.”

“So the lightning did it for you?” Rey queried. “Perhaps that was the Force, too?”

Luke’s mouth twisted. “It was certainly an aspect of it,” he agreed. “A very annoying one,” he added, under his breath.

“I think we’ll keep hold of them for now,” Rey decided, walking around the fire to sit beside Ben again. “Perhaps we can look at them together, tomorrow?”

It was indeed getting too dark to read easily, by this point. Ben suspected the planet had a fairly short day/ night cycle.

“All right,” Luke agreed, clearly seeing that arguing with Rey was not going to get him anywhere. Ben’s estimation of his intelligence rose slightly. “Are you hungry?” He glanced at the almost empty bowl next to Rey, and grunted, then disappeared into another of the huts, returning with more kelp, as well as a selection of fish - some salted, which they tucked into right away, and some fresh, which he cooked over the fire.

Ben found the food acceptable, despite suspecting that it was a far cry from his usual diet, although he had no idea where that feeling came from. He looked over at Rey, who was giving the distinct impression that she would eat absolutely anything – there were a lot more bones on his plate than there were on hers, but she certainly hadn’t taken any less fish. She seemed to feel his gaze and grinned at him. There was seaweed stuck in her teeth. He grinned back. Perhaps there would come a time when he wouldn’t find everything about her utterly charming, but that time was clearly in no way imminent.

The sun had set by the time they’d finished eating, and Luke got to his feet. The moonlight was bright enough that they could still see clearly as he pointed to one hut, and then another. “The one with the robes, and the one with the food, the Caretakers will be accessing in the morning,” he said, as he pointed. “To answer your earlier question, Rey.” He looked from her, to Ben, and back again, then closed his eyes, heaving out a mighty sigh. “I’m going to bed. There’s a stream over there.” He pointed again, and then stomped off, the makeshift door of his hut banging shut behind him.

“Any preference?” Rey asked, standing and stretching her arms over her head in a yawn that seemed entirely disproportionate to her size.

“What?” Ben asked intelligently, gazing up at her.

“About which hut to sleep in,” she explained. “Do you have any preference?”

Ben felt a flash of alarm. What did she mean? Was she giving him first choice, and then taking another hut for herself? It was true she’d maybe, slightly, mostly terrified him earlier, but he didn’t want to be parted from her. But then again, he mustn’t assume. If that was what she wanted, then that was what they’d do. Obviously. Was that what she wanted? What did she want?

“What?” he said again.

She frowned, and he immediately berated himself for confusing her.

“Whatever you like,” he said quickly, which seemed to cover any eventuality. “You choose. Whatever you decide is fine with me.” He stayed sitting down in case that made her feel more in charge. Although she didn’t actually seem to have a problem feeling in charge, so probably it was more that he rather enjoyed looking up at her. He wanted to reach out and touch her in some way, but was very conscious that they’d eaten with their fingers and that he needed to wash his hands.

“All right, then let’s take that one.” She pointed to a hut with a gray wooden door. “Do you want to get a fire started, while I go and…” She nodded in the direction that Luke had indicated for the stream.

That definitely sounded like a one-hut kind of plan. Ben smiled. “Yes, sure,” he agreed promptly. He stood, as she picked up her bag and began to move away, but looked round when he heard her footsteps pause. She was standing just at the edge of the firelight, staring back at him.

“I’m glad you’re with me,” she said, not for the first time, and the words warmed Ben more than the flames had ever managed.

 

By the time she returned, he had a new fire going in the center of the hut she’d selected, had piled some extra fuel nearby, and was looking somewhat askance at the sleeping platform to the right of the door, which appeared unyielding in the extreme.

“Here,” she said from behind him, and he turned to see her holding out her bag to him. He took it, rather uncertainly. What did she want him to do with it?

“There’s a spare hygiene kit in there,” she said. “And some other bits and pieces I borrowed from the Falcon.” She made a vague waving motion in the direction of his hair.

Ben took a much more secure grip on the bag. “Thank you,” he said, with feeling.

She grinned at him. “Go on, then,” she prompted. “I’ll grab some blankets and things from the other hut – there was another chest full of them.”

She’d clearly been right, as when he got back the bed area looked much more comfortable, with a thick stack of blankets cushioning the stone surface. She’d also brought the books inside, and her quarterstaff was leaning against the wall. The fire he’d built gave the place a warm glow and took any chill from the air, and the overall effect was surprisingly cozy.

He closed the door behind him, his heart rate already picking up speed. He determinedly told it to settle down and was half way through giving himself a strict mental talking–to, when Rey started unbuckling her belt. He gave up.

She dropped the belt, with its holstered blaster, by the foot of the bed, and he walked over and set her bag down beside it.

She looked up at him. “Hi,” she said.

“Hello.”

“I’m nervous,” she confessed, her eyes huge and honest.

He found the admission oddly calming. “Rey, I… we need to talk,” he said.

“Okay,” she agreed, looking confused but amenable. “Shall we sit?” There was only really the bed, so they sat on that, side by side, with their feet on the floor. “What is it?” she asked. “Is something wrong?”

He grimaced. “No, not wrong, exactly. It’s just…” Words. Where were words when he needed them? “When we… kissed,” he got out eventually, already feeling the pinkness rising up his cheeks. “Earlier,” he added, like an idiot – as if they’d kissed so many times that she wouldn’t know which one he meant.

“Yes?” she prompted, her own face growing a little pink, which made him feel better.

“Did it feel… familiar to you?” he asked. “I mean, at all?”

She frowned. “Well, no,” she said. “But then… nothing does, does it? We’ve lost our memories. That’s what memory loss means.”

“Yes,” he agreed, slowly. “Yes, but still…”

She pulled one knee up onto the bed, so she could twist round to face him. “Just tell me,” she commanded.

“I don’t want to rush this,” he said, the words dashing out as if determined to contrast with his statement. “Us. This.” He waved a hand between the two of them.

“All right,” she said immediately. “That’s all right. That’s fine.” She caught the hand he was waving and held it in both of hers. “That’s _fine_ ,” she said again. She gave him a lopsided smile. “I’ve got no idea what I’m doing, anyway.”

“Me neither,” he admitted, letting out the breath he absolutely knew he’d been holding. He twisted round the way she had done, so that he could see her more fully. “It’s not that I don’t want… this. You. All of it. It just all feels so _new_. Just kissing you was…” he trailed off, his words finally deserting him completely.

“Overwhelming,” Rey said, softly.

“Yeah,” he agreed. He smiled at her, feeling suddenly sleepy now that the tension had somewhat drained out of him. “I don’t want to jump straight into someone else’s life, even my own,” he said. “At least until we get our memories back, I want to live this one. With you. And I don’t want to miss anything.”

She smiled back. “I have no problem with that.” She nodded her head towards the platform they were sitting on. “Can we still… you know… cuddle?”

“Gods, yes!” he exclaimed quickly. “Yes, please. Yes, that would be… Yes.”

She beamed happily at him. “Good.” She looked the bed up and down. “Because I don’t think we’re both going to fit on here otherwise.” A thought seemed to strike her and she turned back to him, her smile slipping a little. “Unless you want your own -?”

“No!” Ben denied immediately, before the word ‘hut’ appeared in a completely unacceptable context. “No, this is fine. Good. Yes. Thank you.”

“Okay,” she said.

“So long as you still want me here, of course?” he checked.

She looked at him as if he’d asked whether they should get a pet rancor. “I always want you here,” she said simply.

He nodded and got to his feet, ostensibly to give her room to get settled but really to give himself a moment to recover. To want things himself was familiar - everyone wanted things. Even Luke, who appeared to live like a monk, had that weird one-glove thing going on. But to be wanted... that was something very different. And she kept just coming out with these statements as if they were nothing, but they _weren't._ Not to him. 

He pulled himself together and looked round. Rey had shifted over to the far side of the bed and was lying down, her head on the rolled up blanket she had laid out as a pillow, and he surveyed the free space available, wondering how best to squeeze himself into it.

“Will you take your belt off?” she asked, suddenly. “I don’t want that thing poking me in the middle of the night.”

Her words seemed to hang in the air between them, as if they’d triggered some kind of innuendo alarm and were now duty bound to remain until a specific level of mortification had been reached.

“The lightsaber,” she muttered, immediately shooting them at least two levels higher towards the required embarrassment threshold. “I meant your lightsaber.” Her cheeks were scarlet so it seemed that she too did at least remember the mechanics of what they’d agreed not to rush into, even if not the experience, which was something else he’d wondered about.

He silently stripped off the belt and set it down beside hers, then carefully tried to ease himself onto what seemed to have been designated as ‘his side’. It didn’t feel very secure.

“This isn’t going to work, is it?” she decided, sitting up and looking down at where his shoulder was hanging off the edge. “You’re ridiculously enormous,” she complained, although it didn’t sound like a complaint at all, and she actually looked distinctly smug about it.

“Move over,” she instructed, lifting herself to balance on hands and toes as she clambered across him.

He shifted as directed, impressed by her casual athleticism, but also slightly wary of her knees. She clearly remembered some aspects of male anatomy, but might be less concerned with others and he was very aware that, much as he adored her, he didn’t want her knees interacting in any way with his more personal areas.

Once he was situated fully on the bed, she simply draped herself over the side of his body, pulling his arm around her and putting her head on his shoulder. Ben lay there half beneath her, carefully cataloguing every sensation in the hope that he would never, ever, forget this feeling, no matter what the Force had planned for them.

“You don’t feel very relaxed,” Rey chided after a few minutes.

“I am,” he said. “I’m…” It took him a stupid amount of time to identify what he was feeling. “I’m happy,” he said, at last. He daringly pressed a kiss to the top of her head. “I’m happy.”

“Did you not expect to be?” Rey tipped her head back and he looked down into her smiling eyes.

“I don’t know,” he admitted, holding back a shrug so as not to jar her. “It feels… weird.”

“Huh.” She was still looking up, but her gaze had fallen to his mouth. “Can I…”

He leaned down, and she stretched up, and already this kiss felt completely natural and right, and as if he was exactly where he was supposed to be, with exactly the person he was supposed to be with – and if he’d ever in his life kissed anyone else, then the Force could please keep those memories and hurl them into the nearest supernova, because there was no one in this or any other galaxy that he wanted, but Rey.


	7. Chapter 7

Rey’s smile woke before she did, curling contentedly across her face as she gradually emerged from sleep. She knew exactly where she was, and precisely whose body she was virtually sprawled across, and she was _so_ deliciously comfortable. She tensed her muscles, simply for the sheer pleasure of relaxing them again, and the heavy arms that were wrapped reassuringly around her tightened with her movement.

“Are you awake?” Ben’s voice murmured, very quietly.

“No,” she said firmly, snuggling in deeper to what limited extent that was possible, as she already seemed to be pretty much at maximum snuggle. “Definitely not.”

His chuckle vibrated through her whole body, and she raised her head from his chest to smile sleepily up at him. “Am I squashing you?” she asked, although it was a mostly redundant question, since she _must_ be. She’d gone to sleep last night draped over his side, but this morning she was basically on top of him.

“No,” he said, peering down at her, his sleep-softened features even more attractive than usual, if that was possible – which question it was still too early in the morning to properly ponder.

She managed to push her not-yet-entirely-awake eyebrow into at least a hint of an interrogative position.

“Well, yes, a bit,” he admitted. His arms tightened again before she could even begin to relocate herself. “But I like it.”

She put her head back down and simply nestled, and they lay like that for several minutes before Rey started edging her way upwards. As soon as she could reach, she pushed her face into the unscarred side of his neck, and sucked in an enormous lungful of fantastically Ben-scented air. She held it for as long as she could and then simply stayed there, breathing him in until she hazily wondered if he could he possibly taste as good as he smelled, so she opened her mouth over his skin and pressed the flat of her tongue against it.

He tensed beneath her and she pulled back a little, softly kissing his neck and sliding her hand up the other side and into his hair, stroking her fingers through it and murmuring soothingly.

“All right?” she questioned, quietly.

“Yes.”

His voice was low but not uncertain, and she opened her mouth again, sucking lightly, and he did indeed taste addictively wonderful. Her fingers tightened in his hair, and she breathed in through her nose and sucked at his neck again, harder this time, her teeth scraping against his skin in a way that caused her a moment’s concern that she might be hurting him, but he tipped up his chin in unmistakable invitation, one of his hands gripping a fistful of the fabric between her shoulder blades, and the other sliding down to the very base of her spine.

Rey didn’t really know what she was doing, but he tasted so good and his hair felt so soft around her grasping fingers, and she tilted her hips, her legs falling to either side of his body as she essentially wrapped herself around him, her mouth clamped to the side of his neck as she sucked at him, too hard really, she must be hurting him, but he didn’t seem to mind, his hands clutching her against him and the lower one pressing down on her hips just exactly hard enough, and despite having no more memory of getting herself off than she did of sex itself, she definitely knew how to do it, and that pressure, that friction, just exactly right _there_ between her legs… that was definitely doing it and she gripped his hair tight enough to hold his head in place and bit him harder, feeling as if she wanted to devour him completely.

His choked off groan hit her with all the impact of a sudden sandstorm, and at once his request that they take things slowly was echoing loudly in her head. She pulled back, struggling until he realized that she was trying to break his hold and immediately released her, and Rey nearly flailed herself off the bed completely.

“What is it? What’s wrong?” he demanded, sitting up and reaching out to grab hold of her again as she teetered on the edge. He looked disheveled and wild, his hair tousled from her fingers and his eyes darting all over her face and down her body, as he held her by the upper arms.

“I’m sorry!” she blurted out, trying to meet his gaze but unable to look away from the huge mark on his neck. A red tide of shame flooded her and she could feel her cheeks coloring to match the bite she had inflicted. “Ben, I’m sorry!”

“What?” He looked utterly confused. “Are you all right?” He looked down at his hands, softening his grip. “Did I hurt you?”

“What? No!” Rey shook her head, pulling herself free and getting her feet on the ground. She stood and jerkily moved several paces away, folding her arms across her body. He’d asked her for one thing. One. Thing. Would he leave her now? “I didn’t mean to rush you. I’m sorry. I’ll do better.” She didn’t look round.

There was a quiet “Oh”, followed by rustling as he got up from the bed, and then he walked around in front of her, hunching down so he could look straight into her face. “Rey, I know you’re strong, both in the Force, and in yourself… but do you really think I couldn’t stop you if I wanted to? Of course I’m not going to leave you!”

“Well, you’re very polite,” she pointed out, hugely relieved that he didn’t seem angry, but not willing to let herself off the hook just yet. He had expressly stated concerns in advance which she had accepted – just because he hadn’t objected at the time, didn’t make it okay.

“I’m polite?” he echoed, snorting. “So, I’m going to go along with something I don’t want just because it would be rude to say ‘No’?”

Rey shrugged. People had done stranger things, she was sure.

Ben had brought his hands back to her upper arms, rubbing up and down them soothingly, and now he gently urged her forwards into his embrace. Rey needed no second invitation, and snuggled in. He stroked her hair.

“For the record,” he said. “What you were doing was… good.” He cleared his throat. “Very good.” He pulled back a little so that they could look at each other. “If I want you to stop, I will ask. I promise,” he said. “And you do the same, all right?”

“All right,” agreed Rey, although she privately felt it would be a snowy day in the desert before she stopped him doing anything at all that involved them touching each other. Or him taking off his clothes. She decided she wasn’t done hugging yet and moved back in.

“Why would you think I would leave you?” Ben asked softly, after a little while. “Where did that come from?”

“I don’t know,” Rey replied, staying right where she was. Still not done hugging.

“I appreciate your concern for me, but I can’t understand why you would think -”

He broke off so suddenly that Rey pulled back a little, just far enough to see his face. He was frowning in concentration, his eyes focused up and off to the side, the way people do when they’re trying to remember something. It was a look they’d no doubt both worn a lot in recent times, not that it had done them any good.

“Think...” he said again. “ _‘Think’!_ You didn’t _say_ that, did you, Rey?”

“What?” He’d lost her. Not in the sense that he no longer had her because, as she’d already internally acknowledged, he could pretty much have her whenever he wanted. But in the sense that she had any clue what he was talking about – yeah. Lost. She suspected it was going to be a familiar feeling, as he was clearly the more ‘thinky’ one out of the two of them - she bet he’d been a spectacularly angst-ridden teenager.

“Your worry about my leaving you,” he explained. “You did worry about that, didn’t you?”

Rey frowned. “Not ‘worried’ exactly,” she denied. She wasn’t _that_ clingy. “It was more of a fleeting… _Oh!_ ” She stared back at him. A thought. It had been a thought. She hadn’t put it into words. “Are you in my head?” she demanded, stepping back. She knew that was an ability the Jedi were reputed to have, but she hadn’t thought he would do it to her without even asking.

He looked hurt. “No!” he exclaimed. “No, of course not! I don’t know how it happened – I didn’t even recognize that it had, until just then!”

“Right,” she agreed. “Sorry.” It was just as well – she had the feeling some of her thoughts would shock the hell out of him.

“I guess we should tell Luke?” she suggested. She walked over to their belts and picked them up, holding his out to him and then fastening her own. “Maybe we can find some breakfast, too - I’m starving.”

“I could tell,” he said wryly, and her eyes flew to his neck again as he busied himself with the buckle. She hadn’t realized her mouth was that _wide_.

He saw where she was looking and raised a hand, touching the affected area tentatively.

“Does it hurt?” she asked, fearing that it must.

“Not really.” He grinned suddenly. “Well worth it, anyway. Does it show?”

She made her nod as apologetic as possible.

“A lot?” he checked, not looking at all displeased by the idea.

She cringed, but nodded again. “Sorry.”

“Don’t be.” He suddenly swooped in, ducking down to her height and wrapping his arms around her, then standing straight again, lifting her right off her feet so that their faces were level. “D’you know what I like the most?” he asked, grinning exuberantly.

The pitiful shrieking sound she’d made when he picked her up had thankfully been short lived, so she shook her head, looping her arms around his neck to indicate that he should please not be alarmed by the shriek, or consider letting her go in any way.

“Being able to touch you whenever I like,” he said, smiling his utterly charming, lopsided smile at her. “To kiss you…” He suited the action to the word, although it was a chaste and closed-mouth affair, not at all like the long, exploratory kisses they’d shared the night before. No doubt Mr. Fastidious was concerned that he hadn’t yet brushed his teeth – Rey had noticed his reticence in reaching out to her after their meal, before he’d washed the fish from his fingers.

“And you never push me away,” he added. “At least, you haven’t yet. Obviously you can if you –”

Rey kissed him again, to save time. The chances of her pushing him away felt somewhere between non-existent and negative infinity, so there was no point him finishing that thought. Gods, he was strong. Although lean, she wasn’t a small woman, and he was holding her off the ground with no visible sign of strain. She could probably help by wrapping her legs around his waist, though. Just to make things easier.

Before she could act on this thought of staggering genius, her conscience pointed out that she had literally only just promised to do better on the 'taking things slowly' front and, as if trying to be helpful, her tummy let out the most enormous rumble. Ben chuckled and set her back down.

“Come on, then,” he said, leading the way to the door and opening it for her. “After you,” he said, bowing and making an elaborate arm gesture. She stuck her tongue out at him and swept through, walking out into what looked like a peaceful sunny morning.

That initial impression lasted only until she’d fully emerged, at which point a series of horrified-sounding squawking noises broke out. She looked around, Ben appearing at her shoulder immediately.

“Oh, _Caretakers_!” she exclaimed. “That’s who he meant. It didn’t click.” Luke had mentioned ‘caretakers’, but the term hadn’t reached her brain with an initial capital, and somehow she’d never made the connection to these creatures, but she recognized them now.

They didn’t look happy.

“These are the Caretakers?” Ben questioned, as one of them waved her arms in the air, chattering loudly, and another threw down her broom and stomped away. His eyebrows rose. “I guess they don’t like visitors.”

Rey shrugged. She was hungry, and she knew where there was food. Her objective was clear.

Luke was already up, sitting on the same bench from the night before and eating from a plate held on his lap.

“Good morning!” Rey called out.

“I’ll get…” Ben indicated the food hut, and she nodded. He stroked a hand down her back before moving away, and she walked forward to sit with Luke.

“Are you going to train us?” she asked brightly.

He grunted and she decided he was either very unused to visitors, or just not a morning person.

“Or perhaps it’s more a case of helping us to recover skills we already learned,” she mused. “Perhaps you’ve trained us before, even?”

Another grunt. She looked round as Ben emerged with breakfast, and beamed at him. Well, not just at him – at least half of her beam was directed at the contents of his hands. A gorgeous man carrying food… could there be a more attractive sight in the whole galaxy?

“Thank you!” she said, as he passed her a plate and sat down on the other side of her to Luke.

“I read Rey’s mind this morning,” he addressed the Jedi Master. “Without trying to, I mean.”

Luke’s third grunt sounded marginally more interested, but he still didn’t look up.

“I didn’t even realize I’d done it until afterwards,” Ben kept on talking. Wasn’t he hungry at _all_? How did he keep that massive frame going? “And it wasn’t words so much as a feeling. But it was very clear - and very unexpected, so it definitely came from Rey and not from me.”

Finally, he took a bite of his breakfast, but soon pressed on. “It happened at a moment of… emotional intensity. Could that be a factor?”

Luke made an odd choking noise and Rey scooted along the bench and thumped him helpfully on the back. He quickly held up a hand, and she desisted.

“Are you all right?” she asked.

He briefly closed his eyes, but then took a deep breath and nodded, scooping up another mouthful of his breakfast with an air of grim determination.

“Maybe it’s like when I was trying to lift the rock?” she suggested. “I didn’t know how to do it, and then the understanding just came to me, as if a door had opened in my mind.” She’d taken the edge off her appetite by now, so was happy to talk and munch at the same time.

“We’ve felt right from the start that we were connected,” Ben filled in. “Can you at least tell us something about that, if nothing else?”

Luke looked up at last, his gaze moving to Ben’s face, but then immediately dropping a few inches. His eyes widened.

Oh, dear. Rey could feel her face heating as he stared at the evidence of her… appetite, which Ben was making no attempt to cover. Not that there was much he could have done, in fairness. A high collared inner shirt might make it less glaring, but she looked at the more open neckline she’d picked out for him and felt confident in her choice - he'd been covered up enough.

Luke slowly set down his plate, then brought his hand up and rubbed it over his eyes, and she feared he was simply going to abandon what was left of his breakfast and leave them to it, but then his mouth quirked up at the corner.

“Well, I suppose it is balance, of a sort,” he sighed, shaking his head.

Rey frowned in confusion, and looked at Ben, who started to shrug, but then paused and indicated the scar on the other side of his neck. He made a questioning face at her. Ah. A mark of… well, let’s call it ‘affection’, on one side and a battle scar on the other – she supposed that was balance of a kind. She sent him an ‘ _I guess so_ ’ shrug back.

Luke sighed once more, and then looked at them again, keeping his eye line high. “About your bond - I can’t tell you much.”

Ben made a noise of protest, and he held up his hand. “No, I mean I literally can’t tell you, because you didn’t tell _me_ – I only found out by accident, and that was the last time I saw you.”

Rey pounced on that crumb of information. “So, you do know us? Both of us? We’ve been here before?”

Luke’s mouth twisted. “I do know you, yes. Both of you.” He stopped, clearly having no intention of answering the last part of her question.

“Rey’s been here before,” Ben said suddenly.

She turned to look at him, raising her eyebrows in query.

“Porgs,” he said. “And now Caretakers, too. They’re surely indigenous creatures, and you recognized them.”

Yes, he was definitely the ‘thinky’ one. She felt rather proud, until she followed the concept through. “And you didn’t,” she said slowly, not liking this train of thought at all.

“And I didn’t,” he agreed, looking equally regretful.

So she’d been here by herself. Without him. Alone.

Luke banged his plate down noisily. “Come up to the saddle once you’re done,” he said, getting to his feet.

“The saddle?” Rey questioned, raising a hand to shield her eyes from the sun as she squinted up at him.

“Top of the steps,” he said, moving in that direction. “Bring some of the books,” he called back.

Rey watched him go, feeling abruptly desolate. They’d been living in a bit of a bubble these last days - it had felt enough that Ben was with her, and that they were in it together. But the reality was that they were part of a bigger story, and who knew where that would take him?

The side of her body was suddenly warm as Ben relocated. “We’re together now,” he said, wrapping an arm around her. “I’m right here.”

“We can’t know you’ll be able to stay that way,” Rey said. “We don’t know anything! There’s clearly a massive conflict going on; you saw the size of that ship that got destroyed – possibly by us! Whatever’s happening, we are right in the middle of it.” She felt tears flooding her eyes.

Ben looked horrified. He slipped off the bench and knelt in front of her, abandoning his plate, and taking hers out of her hands to set to one side. She must be upset, because she let him do it.

“Rey, I won’t leave you,” he promised, gripping either side of her hips in his huge hands.

“You can’t –“

“I _can_ ,” he interrupted, his voice more forceful than she had ever heard it. “I don’t know if we were together before this, although I have some ideas, but we’re together now. And we’re staying that way.”

Usually he would tack on some kind of disclaimer about her freedom to choose to the end of a sentiment like that, but he didn’t bother this time.

“But what if we _can’t_?” she tried not to wail, but it probably came out a bit wail-y. “We’re clearly important in some way – the Force wouldn’t do this to us for no reason. We must have roles we have to play.” Her tears were dripping off the end of her chin by now, and Ben looked as if he’d rather it were his blood that was flowing.

“You saw what we woke up to,” he reminded her. “It looked like we’d killed the leader of whoever those people were. Perhaps we’ve played our roles already. I suspect I have, at any rate. Which makes me free to follow you.” He inspected the end of her grey sash, but then pulled a face and dropped it, wiping her cheeks as best he could with his hand.

“What do you mean?” she asked, sniffing. “About having played your role already?” How could he possibly know more than she did? They’d been together practically every minute.

He sat back on his heels, looking up at her. “Well, I’m just guessing, of course,” he said. “But consider the evidence – Luke made me destroy all the clothes I’d been wearing, fearing a tracking device. I’ve never been to Ahch-To, or even recently on the Falcon, depending on when Chewie’s porg infestation began, and yet Luke and Chewie both clearly know me. You and I are definitely connected, and we were even before this happened – Luke referred to it as our ‘bond’ -” he paused to smile at that, and Rey found her own expression matching, “but I suspect that we weren’t _physically_ together, or at least not very much, or I wouldn’t overreact so strongly every time you touch me.”

“You do?” Rey blushed. He’d seemed pretty shaken by their first kiss, it was true, but it had definitely been her who got carried away this morning.

“Oh, I do,” he said. “Why do you think I wanted to slow things down? I need to build up some sort of familiarity, or I’m going to embarrass myself completely. And, even worse, disappoint _you_!”

He held up a hand when she opened her mouth to argue that he could never do that. “And finally,” he added, “and perhaps most significant of all, because I can’t think of any other explanation… I have a red lightsaber.”

With a great effort of will, Rey dragged her mind away from thoughts of helping Ben to get used to being touched by her, and forced herself to focus on the points he had made.

They’d been together, but physically apart, so there must have been a reason why he couldn’t be with her – because she didn’t think she was flattering herself overmuch to feel that only something very important would keep him away.

He’d been wearing clothes that had presumably come from their enemy, if there was a risk they had tracking devices.

And his lightsaber was a color only associated with dark Force users.

“Oh!” she said softly, as she finally followed his reasoning – and he was most definitely going to be in charge of thinking from now on, because he was clearly amazing at it – “You must have been -”

“A spy,” he finished for her. “Yes, I think so. I mean, I can’t be sure, obviously. But it’s the only thing I can think of that fits all the facts. And that’s why I suspect my role must be over – killing the leader and then leaving with you must have blown any cover I had.”

“You’re a genius,” Rey told him, lost in admiration, her tears forgotten.

Ben looked adorably bashful, and she felt obliged to kiss him. It started with her leaning down and pressing her lips relatively chastely to his, but within seconds he was up on his knees again, holding her tightly against his body, and kissing her as if he wanted to drive out every lonely moment she’d ever had. His tongue was in her mouth, his hand in her hair, his arms wrapped around her – she felt completely enveloped and engulfed and as if she was drowning, but she welcomed the waves even as they closed over her head.

 

The ‘saddle’ turned out to be a grassy valley at the top of the first set of steps, although Rey could see another set leading even higher not far away. Luke was standing at the edge of the cliff staring out at the horizon, probably gearing himself up for another session of determinedly keeping his eyes above chin level. She had done her best for him – she’d stuck her head into the hut where the robes were kept, thinking to look for something Ben could wrap around his neck, but there were three Caretakers in there looking absolutely outraged over the disarranged state of the clothing chest, and she’d beaten a hasty retreat. They did seem a very grumpy bunch – she was almost sure one of those working outside had thrown a fish at her.

Luke turned when he heard them approaching and they settled sitting cross-legged on the grass, which seemed to please Ben to a disproportionate degree.

He was even happier when it turned out that he could read the books, strengthening the theory that he was a Jedi, no matter what he’d had to pretend in recent times. So could Luke, of course, but to Rey’s great disappointment they made no sense to her whatsoever. After a long effort, she closed the one she’d been trying to work out via the disappointingly sparse illustrations, and threw it down onto the grass.

Luke opened his mouth, but she raised a _‘you were going to destroy them all’_ eyebrow at him, and he closed it again.

Ben put down his own book too, ostensibly in solidarity, but she suspected it hadn’t turned out to be as gripping as he’d hoped.

“Perhaps it’s time to try out your Force powers,” Luke suggested.

Rey focused on a nearby rock, effortlessly lifting it and sending it hurtling over the cliff face. At the last moment she realized there could be a path beneath and threw out her hand to freeze it before it fell, directing it instead back to its starting point. “It’s interesting,” she said. “I don’t _have_ to reach out physically, but it’s easier if I do.”

Ben nodded. “It’s instinctive to reach out,” he agreed.

“Rocks,” Luke muttered. “Always rocks.”

“What about the mind-reading?” Ben suggested.

Rey looked at him.

“I mean like what happened this morning,” he clarified. “Nothing invasive. Try thinking of something specific.”

Her eyes fell to his chest.

There was a short silence.

“Perhaps something else?” Ben’s voice sounded strained.

Luke sighed heavily, for what must be the fiftieth time since they arrived – he really was not a people person. “I was talking about the lightsaber,” he said. They both turned to him. “You do have a broken lightsaber, do you not?”

“Yes!” Rey exclaimed, scrabbling in her bag and bringing out the pieces. “Can we fix it? I didn’t think you’d have the tools, here.”

“Tools,” Luke repeated, raising his eyebrows at her. At least he didn’t sigh again. “What did you just do?”

She looked at him blankly, and then at the rock she had lifted. “Oh!” she said. “You mean I can…” she nodded towards the lightsaber, “…with my mind?”

“That’s the idea,” Luke said. “Something you can work on together, perhaps?”

He very pointedly didn’t look at Ben’s neck, but Rey got the distinct impression that there was a ‘keep them out of mischief’ undertone to his suggestion.

 

Over the next couple of days, they looked at more of the books with Luke, practiced using the Force and going through exercise forms together, and worked on Rey’s lightsaber.

And kissed. They kissed _a lot_. Rey had backed off as best she could after the bite incident (which looked even more livid now than it had in the first place, to her horror and Ben’s clear absolute lack of the same), and they had remained tragically fully clothed, but they had spent hours kissing and holding each other, and each night wrapped tightly together on their thankfully narrow bed.

Rey strongly suspected that if Ben were presented with a dessert, he would savor it very slowly, eating his least favorite bits first and always saving the best for last. He liked the anticipation. She’d have eaten the entire thing and gone back for seconds, and quite possibly be tinkering with the cooking droid to increase production by this time. But there was no doubt that they were becoming much more comfortable with one another.

Late one morning, they were sitting with Luke on the grass near the edge of the cliffs. It was sunny again after pouring with rain almost the entire day before, to Ben’s absolute horror. He had been even more appalled to find that she rather liked it, and had not fallen in with his suggestion that they stay indoors all day, ‘practicing’.

The air was warm, and the grass had dried off quickly, so everything was really rather idyllic. Rey sat back on her hands, and was just enjoying the sun on her face when Ben made a sound of disgust.

“What is it?” she asked, sitting up again. He was pulling a face at the book in his hands.

“This one is all about attachments,” he said. “Family. Friends.” He glanced up at her. “Romantic love.”

“Oh!” His use of the word made her heart skip and she had a sudden mental image of it dancing around happily in her chest and forgetting what it was supposed to be doing. “What does it say?” she asked, with an air of casualness that wouldn’t fool a bloggin.

“That we shouldn’t have any,” he replied, regarding the book as if it had unexpectedly grown teeth and bitten his finger.

“What?!” she exclaimed, grabbing the book from him and staring resentfully at the words she couldn’t read.

Luke sighed. Again. “I have never agreed with the Jedi teachings on that point,” he admitted.

Rey looked at Ben. Ben looked back at Rey. Then she threw the book up high in the air, and he Force pushed it hard enough to send it sailing over the cliff and into the ocean.

She was still regarding the resultant splash with deep satisfaction, when her attention was caught by a flash of movement in the sky. Too big and too fast to be anything else, she leapt to her feet as she pointed.

“It’s the Falcon!”

They went down the steps much faster than they’d walked up them several days before, Rey in the lead, with Ben right behind her, and Luke following at a much more sedate pace. Even so, there were a lot of steps and by the time Rey reached the bottom, the Falcon had landed and the exit ramp was already lowering.

She ran forward, but the figure moving down the ramp was far too small to be Chewie and she stopped, stumbling as Ben's greater momentum sent him smack into the back of her, but he immediately threw an arm around her middle to keep her upright.

“Sorry,” he said, slightly breathlessly.

The new arrival had already emerged – a tiny woman, but not one who could ever be easily dismissed. She had a presence about her that was almost regal in nature, her whole aura making it very clear that she was 'Someone'. She smiled at Rey, but it was obvious where her focus lay.

“Ben,” she said, and there was a world of emotion in her surprisingly deep voice. She walked forward, her eyes raking over him as if she almost couldn't believe what she was seeing, and yet desperately wanted to.

“I'm your mother.”


	8. Chapter 8

Leia found it almost impossible to look away from the vision before her. Her son. _Her son_. And it wasn’t a vision. It wasn’t a dream – one of so many she had had. Dreams where she had never sent him away. Dreams where she had been a better mother. Dreams where she had used all of her resources to track down Snoke and wipe his stench from the galaxy once and for all, before he had twisted and taken her son from her.

But now Snoke was dead. And perhaps even by her son’s hand – almost certainly with his involvement. Leia had been on the very edge of despair when Chewie’s message had reached her. Just Chewie’s. Not one response to their distress signal. They had been sitting ducks, helplessly waiting for the First Order to descend and finish the job… and starting to wonder what was taking them so long, when the long-silent console had finally buzzed with his incoming transmission.

It seemed they were being given a second chance, and what she saw before her now was such a perfect representation of the man her son could have been, it might have been lifted straight from her heart. The man he was meant to be. Tall. Handsome. He’d grown into his shoulders since she’d seen him last. And wearing the robes of a Jedi, not the dark disguise she’d had far too many nightmares about. And with him, standing just half a step forward and to the side… Rey. Precious Rey, who had risked her life and saved them all. And for Rey, Leia would manage the impossible, and look away from her son.

She walked up to her, stretching out both hands.

“Rey!” she said, putting all the warmth she felt into her smile. “My dear girl.”

Rey took her hands without hesitation. “You’re Ben’s mother?” she said, smiling back. She looked to the Falcon’s exit ramp. “Are my family here, too?” she asked eagerly.

Leia’s heart hurt for her. She met Ben’s eyes over the girl’s shoulder, and saw him realize what the answer was going to be. He swallowed, closing the half step separating him from Rey and putting his arm around her waist. He looked as if he would do almost anything to spare her this pain and, much as Leia regretting having to deliver such news, the sight of her son showing such concern for someone did fan the flames of hope that Chewie’s message had sparked in her.

She transferred both of Rey’s hands to one of her own, and cupped her cheek. “I’m sorry,” she said. Though they had spent only a little time together, they had bonded immediately, united in their grief over Han’s death. And now this one young girl had somehow managed to bring back her son. Whatever happened, Leia owed her a debt that could never be repaid.

Rey was still staring toward the Falcon, as if thinking that if she waited long enough, if she didn’t look away, if she didn’t blink… then her family would appear.

“Rey, your family is one that you have made,” Leia said gently, but still the girl stared. “You have people who love you,” she added.

“Me,” she started firmly – Rey was such an endearing child. Even without the huge gratitude Leia felt for her, she was extremely easy to love.

“Chewbacca.” The Wookiee had latched on to Rey like a lifeline since losing Han.

“Finn.” She didn’t know the full story, but the First Order deserter was completely devoted to her.

“Me,” Ben said quickly, raising his free hand to grip her shoulder.

Leia’s breath caught. _Her boy_. Her angry, needy, lonely boy. Had he found something to love, at last? Chewie had said they seemed close, but _this_ … She could feel her composure wavering and made a conscious effort to breathe through it.

“Ben.” She added his name to the list with a nod, and stroked her thumb over Rey’s cheek. “My dear girl,” she said again. “You are not alone.”

Rey blinked at last, and once she’d started she just kept going. A smile appeared on her face that was clearly crafted from courage and courtesy.

“It’s lovely to meet you,” she said carefully. “I’ll just go and say ‘Hello’ to Chewie.”

She pulled against the holds they had on her, and Leia squeezed her hands, and then released them, but still her son held on.

“Ben,” Rey said quietly.

He was clearly struggling. His face had matured, but the conflict on it was a familiar sight and Leia watched anxiously as it played out, the frustration in him a tangible thing. But he let her go.

She watched him watching Rey walk away, awareness of his churning emotions making her wary, but she forced herself to overcome her hesitation. She would not retreat from him this time. Never again would she push him away out of fear of what he could become. She already knew. And it had been that very fear which had helped push him onto such a dark path.

“You must have a thousand questions,” she said, determinedly reaching out and putting her hand on his arm.

He looked at her. “Who’s Finn?”

 

***

 

Ben hadn’t yet got an answer to his question when there was the sound of footsteps, and he turned to see Luke striding across the landing stage toward them.

 “Leia!” he cried, clearly delighted to see her. Ben hadn’t even known his face could make such an expression.

“Luke.” Her voice was warm with affection.

“You know each other?” he asked. Although it wasn’t really a question, as clearly they did. A thought crossed his mind and he looked at Luke again. No, it couldn’t be… The man was barely taller than Rey. Surely two such diminutive people could not have produced…

“Are you my father?” he asked, doubtfully.

They froze, complicated expressions passing over both their faces.

“No,” his mother said, finally. She nodded her head towards the Falcon. “Go on,” she prompted. “We can talk later.”

Ben desperately wanted to follow Rey. He’d thought nothing could be more heart-breaking than her tears until he’d seen the smile she’d just produced, and he was sure she didn’t specifically want to be alone – she just hadn’t wanted to spoil things for him and his mother.

He took a step towards the ship, but then paused, looking back. “Later,” he said. His mother nodded. He took another step, and stopped again. He didn’t recognize this woman in the way that he had immediately connected with Rey – she wasn’t familiar. But he could sense her concern for him in the Force. And her love. He looked round again.

She hesitantly started to raise her arms and he covered the distance back to her in two long strides.

“ _Ben_.” Her voice cracked on his name and she breathed deeply as she held him with a surprisingly strong grip. He hugged her back, feeling a welter of emotions running through her – it must have been a while since they had seen each other. He hoped that wasn’t his fault.

She patted him firmly a couple of times, then pulled free. “Go on then,” she said gruffly. “Go and comfort your girl.”

He smiled down at her, and then impulsively bent to kiss her cheek, before turning and walking briskly to the Falcon. He glanced back just before he took himself out of sight and she was still standing there, one hand pressed to her cheek where he had kissed it. Luke had his arm around her.

 

“Rey?” he called, as he entered the Falcon. There was a muffled noise from the communal area, and he followed it to find her sitting by the chess set with Chewie, who was rubbing her back.

“You should be with your mother,” she protested, her voice thick and congested from crying.

“She’s talking to Luke – they know each other,” he said gently, moving forward and sliding into the bench on her other side. Chewie looked at him and they had a short conversation over her head consisting entirely of nods, shakes, and facial contortions. At the end of it, Chewie nodded and got up, disappearing in the direction of the cockpit, and Ben pulled Rey into his side, wrapping his arm around her. She leaned her head on his chest as he stroked the side of her face, tucking stray wisps of hair behind her ear.

“I’m being stupid,” she said.

“You are _not_ ,” Ben denied immediately. He kissed the top of her head. “At least, not until you just said that.”

She made a noise that might have originally had aspirations to being a chuckle. “I mean – I hadn’t even thought about a family,” she went on. “I had you. It never even crossed my mind.”

“Me neither,” Ben acknowledged. It seemed a huge omission now, but there it was.

“But now I feel like I lost them all over again,” Rey said. “Without even knowing who they were, or how I lost them in the first place! And I feel guilty for not thinking about them before.”

“It wouldn’t have done any good,” Ben pointed out. “It would have just been one more question we didn’t know the answer to.”

“I know!” she wailed, and she was clearly not looking for logic so he scooped his free arm under her knees and lifted her fully onto his lap, wrapping her up as securely as he could and stroking her hair, and her back, and down the side of her body, as she cried into his neck, and he made soothing noises but he didn’t tell her to hush, or to stop crying, because she clearly needed the release and bottling it up wouldn’t do her any good at all.

“Do you have anyone else?” Rey asked eventually, sniffing and wiping her face on her not-at-all-sanitary arm wraps. Ben resolved to start carrying a clean handkerchief, although he very much hoped not to need it too often. At least she was no longer wearing that sash she’d been scrabbling around on the floor in. Her current outfit was a simple wrap-around top under an open sleeveless jacket, which suited her very well. But then, everything did. She’d looked good in the other clothes too, even after said floor-rolling. In fact he couldn’t imagine her looking anything but wonderful, no matter what she… Ben told his imagination to just shut up for a minute.

“I don’t know,” he said. “I didn’t ask.”

Rey sat up straight and looked at him. “How could you not ask?!” she demanded. “You could have brothers… sisters… a father. Grandparents, even!”

Ben almost shrugged, but stopped himself just in time. She had no family. To be dismissive of his own would be salt in that wound. And he wasn’t dismissive, not really. It just wasn’t his main focus at the moment.

“I’ll find out soon enough,” he said. “But my priority was, and is, _you_.” He certainly hoped that he would have a good relationship with his mother. And with any other family members he turned out to have. But Rey was the family he chose. Rey was his future. He hoped.

She blinked at him. “Really?”

“Really,” he promised. He raised an eyebrow at her. “I know you heard what I said out there.”

She ducked her head. “I thought maybe you were just trying to make me feel better,” she said, apparently becoming fascinated with the stitching of his tunic.

“I _was_ trying to make you feel better,” he agreed. Her eyes shot back to his face, and he took the opportunity to cup the side of her neck in his hand, stroking his thumb along her jaw. “But I wasn’t lying.”

Her mouth fell open on a soft, “ _Oh!_ ”

“So,” he said. “ _Do_ you feel better?”

She nodded, but her eyes were now fixed on his mouth and it was clear where her thoughts were headed. And he was getting tired of resisting her.

He leaned forwards. Not down this time - with Rey sitting on his lap, they were much more on a level than usual. He even had to reach up a little. Their lips met and clung for a moment before pulling away. And again. He loved this… the build up. While the kisses were still teasing, almost playful. Not that he didn’t love all their kisses, because he absolutely did. But these early stages, while he could still think thoughts that weren’t just ‘Rey’, and ‘More’, and general, incoherent need… while he could still register the precise softness of her lips, and the exact texture of whatever part of her was under his hands at the time, be it her face, or her hair, or her neck, or her…

He let his hand slide down a little and suddenly it was spanning her collarbones, and he realized that in all the time they had spent kissing, she’d never been sitting sideways to him before - they had almost always been facing each other. And usually pressed tightly together. Very tightly. She could be in no doubt about how she affected him, although thus far he’d always managed to pull back while he still felt in control. The control he was distinctly afraid of losing, in fact. She was strong, he knew, but he was… stronger. And he had absolutely no memory of doing any of this. What if he hurt her? He was so much bigger than her. He understood the mechanics, but how could he possibly _fit_? He couldn’t bear to hurt her.

He kissed her again, leaving his hand where it was. Her top had an open neck, so most of what he could feel was bare skin, and he took a moment to be thankful that Jedi outfits did not automatically include gloves, as his previous clothes seemed to have done. Although if he’d spent a lot of time with his hands covered, that might explain why they were so very sensitive now – he was aware of what he was touching to what felt like an unusual degree. And when what he was touching was Rey… well, that sensitivity was very much appreciated.

Rey returned his kisses, as she always did, but there was a definite element of reserve – she wasn’t throwing herself into it and pressing herself against him, as was usual for her. In fact, the arm she didn’t have wrapped around his shoulders wasn’t involved at all, but had moved down to rest at her side. Perhaps he’d misread the situation, and she was still too upset to want this right now? He started to pull back, but she growled and grabbed a handful of his hair – Gods, he loved when she did that – so that definitely wasn’t it.

She broke off from kissing him and tipped her head back, pressing his mouth to her throat. The movement shifted his hand a little lower and the potential of their positions suddenly burst into his brain as if Rey had smacked him over the head with her quarterstaff. Which he suspected she might be tempted to do if he made her wait much longer.

Another inch and he could feel her heartbeat. It was particularly noticeable as she seemed to be holding her breath, so her chest wasn’t moving otherwise. He tilted his face against her neck so that he could look down to where his hand rested, the heel of his palm now at the base of the deep ‘V’ of her top, but the rest of it spread out across the fabric covering an area of her upper chest that was right on the borderline of ‘socially acceptable’ space.

He didn’t know why he was making such a big deal of this, not really. She’d already put his hand right there herself, so it wasn’t completely new. And she was broadcasting her consent so clearly he wouldn’t be surprised if every force-sensitive creature on the planet was experiencing an odd moment of reduced inhibition. It just still felt like a significant step towards an ultimate destination he wasn’t completely ready for. Although, this was kind of a good time for it, in a way - they were in a communal area; Chewie was nearby; Ben’s own mother was just outside, for kriff’s sake. Things couldn’t go too far… and Rey was going to asphyxiate if she didn’t inhale soon.

Reminding himself that he was a full grown man and not a teenaged boy, even if he had a comparable absence of experience to draw on, Ben finally relaxed the mental restrictions he had placed on himself, and his hand eagerly slid down until it was covering her breast completely.

Rey’s breath escaped in a rush, and her fingers tightened in his hair, reminding him that multi-tasking was a thing, and that he absolutely could manage to kiss her neck at the same time that he was learning about this wonderful new (to him) part of her, which he already felt confident would hold his fascination for decades to come.

He squeezed gently, enthralled by her softness here, when the rest of her was so lean. Not that he didn’t love her lean areas, too – indeed, touching any part of her felt like a privilege he had no idea how he’d deserved. But this was… special. Rey was an affectionate person; she seemed happy to touch and be touched by people generally. But not here. Here was by invitation only, and there was a significant part of him that was just standing back and watching in amazement that she was letting him do this at all.

He could already feel her nipple poking against his palm through the fabric of her clothes, and he adjusted his hold so that he could stroke his thumb over it. She yelped, but for once he was sure he hadn’t hurt her and he did it again, and again, over and over, as the skin of her chest and neck flushed pink, and her breathing got heavier, and her nipple grew stiffer and more erect in a reaction he could very much relate to.

He had the most powerful urge to simply tip her back down onto the padded seating and crawl up over her, getting rid of all these layers so he could see as well as touch, taste as well as feel, but this obviously wasn’t the time. _Soon_ , he promised himself as he kissed his way up her neck and allowed his fingers to become slightly rougher, pinching and tugging which she clearly did not mind _at all_ , her mouth a little open, and her eyes tightly closed, and her expression cycling through a look of absolute bliss that made him feel pretty damned good about himself, and them, and just the galaxy in general; and one of fierce concentration, where she was clearly focusing all of her senses on what he was doing to her and how it was making her feel, which again didn’t do his confidence any harm at all; but there was also the occasional frown thrown in, which concerned him.

“Are you all right?” he checked, gentling his touch.

She opened her eyes, blinking at him dazedly. “I’m wonderful,” she said.

He smiled. “You are,” he agreed, stilling his hand but in no way removing it. “Why the frown?”

“Huh?”

He waited while she made a visible effort to gather her scattered thoughts together.

“Oh! I just… it doesn’t feel anything like that when I do it,” she said, and Ben’s brain made a desperate attempt at retaining control of the rest of him, but failed profoundly because within seconds he had her flat on her back and was half leaning, half lying over her, kissing her as if the secrets of the universe were hidden somewhere in her mouth, and with the hand which had been at her breast now lifting her hips to press against his own exactly where he needed her, and squeezing her ass shamelessly as he did so.

He was lost. Lost in a world in which Rey made use of the time they spent apart for 'cleansing purposes’ in exactly the way that he did; and he knew she had needs just the same as him, she made no attempt to hide them, and why should she? But he hadn’t allowed himself to think about it. Not at all. But now the images were there in his brain and he didn’t ever want them to leave, and he wanted to _see_ , and he wanted to learn, and he wanted to do that to her himself, and he wanted to bury himself inside her and mark her and claim her and _Gods_ , why was she wearing so many clothes…

“ _Ben!_ ” The word was gasped into his mouth, but it contained a tone that helped bring him back to himself and he stilled the hand that was grasping at the fastening of her shirt, but left it where it was; and he stopped kissing her, but didn’t move away even a fraction of an inch. He wasn’t ready to let go of her yet. Maybe ever.

“Don’t you dare apologize,” she said breathlessly.

“No,” he agreed. He tipped his head down to press their foreheads together and they stayed like that for a little while, as he mentally ran through a litany of all the reasons he’d previously had on his list for ‘why this is a good time to go a step further’ – communal area, nearby Wookiee, mother right outside – although now the title of the list had pretty much changed to ‘kriff, kriff, kriff, _damn it_ ’.

Rey had started stroking his hair and that was nice, that was lovely, he liked that very much. He moved his hand away from her shirt fastenings and slid it back down to her hip, relishing how much of her he could fit in his hand. He felt… yes, definitely less hesitant about touching her. And more confident that he would be able to please her, when it came down to it.

Rey hummed happily and he at last managed to pull his head back far enough that he could see her face. She grinned at him. “That was brilliant.”

“Which bit?”

“All of it.” She raised the hand that wasn’t in his hair above her head and stretched beneath him, looking supremely contented to be exactly where she was.

“I wasn’t too… aggressive?” he asked. She’d told him not to apologize, but it seemed the polite thing to check.

She snorted. “Gods, no!” she declared. She looked at him. “I love your size, and how strong you are. Obviously right now was not the best timing, but you don’t have to be all sweetness and light with me.” She tapped his shoulder and he sat up, allowing her to get to her feet. “You can let your ‘dark side’ out a bit,” she murmured, leaning down to kiss him. “I love it.” She stood up again and started to straighten her clothes. He wanted to help, but decided it probably wouldn’t end up being very helpful.

One she deemed herself presentable, she held out a hand and helped pull him to his feet with that surprising strength of hers. It was fascinating, really. She seemed to have total understanding of fulcrums and pivots and how to position herself in order to exert the maximum possible force. He was undoubtedly much stronger, but not nearly so efficient with how he used it.

“Ready to resume your family reunion?” she asked, and he nodded. There was some degree of frustration, inevitably, but it felt like a familiar sensation, and one that he was well used to dealing with.

“Do you feel better?” he asked, remembering why he had followed her in here in the first place.

“I do.” She smiled up at him as they headed towards the boarding ramp, hearing raised voices as they approached.

“I thought you said they were friends?” Rey queried, her eyebrows rising.

Ben was surprised too, but felt obliged to defend himself. “I said they knew each other,” he clarified.

His mother’s deep voice drifted up the ramp, only the tail end of her sentence audible. “…not fair on Rey!”

They stopped, looking at each other. This might be their only chance to get some information, if the ‘absolutely everything is a secret’ policy continued. And he definitely wanted to know about anything that was unfair to Rey...

“But they weren’t involved with each other before!” his mother could be heard to exclaim.

Ah. It seemed they hadn’t told _her_ about their ‘bond’, any more than they had discussed it with Luke. Ben started to move forward again, but Rey grabbed his hand with both of hers, planted her feet on the floor, and assumed the density of a small star.

Luke’s voice was quieter, but he seemed to be arguing. No doubt bringing her up to speed regarding their connection. “That’s why she _went!_ ” he finished loudly.

Went? Went where? Ben stopped trying to work out how Rey was doing that, and listened right along with her, the pair of them creeping silently closer to the doorway and leaning down around it.

More low grumbling from his mother ensued, from which he could only make out a few words, including ‘Rey’, and ‘innocent’.

There was a loud snort from Luke, and Ben decided that was enough. If anyone was going to say anything detrimental about Rey, it was probably best that he didn’t hear it. He started to straighten up again, ready to go outside and bring this conversation to an end - and Rey jumped on his back.

Ben spent a good few seconds tottering around in shock. Being jumped on by Rey may well have been a concept he’d spent several of his private moments contemplating, but certainly none of his fantasies had started out like this.

“...a love bite on his neck the size of a sensor plate!” they heard Luke exclaim.

Rey abruptly went still, then the weight of her head thumped down between Ben’s shoulder blades and he could practically feel the heat from her blush.

His mother’s voice was indistinct, but the tone was definitely doubtful.

“Well, _I_ didn’t do it!” Luke protested, shrilly. “And you should be glad you’re too short to see his neck. What I’ve been through these last days…”

Rey slid down off Ben’s back and walked over to face the wall of the corridor, leaning her head against it with an audible thump.

“We could just take the Falcon and go somewhere?” she suggested hopefully. “Somewhere far, far away?”

Ben chuckled and held out a hand to her. “Come on,” he said. “We’re together. They may as well get used to it. Anyway, my mother seemed delighted – it was her who told me to follow you, earlier. Called you ‘my girl’, even.” He beamed with remembered pride.

“That was before she knew I’d branded your neck,” Rey grumbled. But she took his hand.

 

A short time later, they were all back in the Falcon, sitting around the very table where Ben’s education on female sexual response had so recently taken what he felt to be a significant step forward. At least, when it came to Rey’s sexual response, and he really wasn’t interested in anybody else’s.

He had been the first to sit down – it might seem impolite, but he'd been afraid his mother was going to dislocate something trying to get a good look at his neck, so it seemed like the most considerate action. Rey was on his right - apparently pretending that his neck only had one side, and avoiding his mother’s eye as much as possible.

Ben was determined that this time the ‘fact sharing’ talk wasn’t going to be such an exclusively one-way exchange, but actually his mother didn’t ask them anything at the outset, so he didn’t need to debate whether or not to share his ‘spy’ theory. Instead, she summarized what she called ‘the situation so far’, and it was clear she’d been brought up to date by both Chewie and Luke, although she was intrigued by the bond he shared with Rey, and asked several more questions about it.

Between them they did their best to explain how they’d each immediately felt connected to the other – to such an extent they’d even wondered if they might be related. His mother’s eyebrows rose at that, and Ben was quick to add that Chewie had told them they weren’t. She redirected her eyebrows towards the Wookiee, who shrugged and gave her to understand that in his opinion it was best that people who potentially had romantic inclinations towards one another should know right from the start whether or not they were related. Luke snorted, and she smacked him on the arm.

At last, she started to give them some actual information, Ben and Rey both leaning forward eagerly as she spoke of a military group called ‘The First Order’ who were trying to take over the whole galaxy and impose their fascist ideals. Apparently the Star Destroyer on which they’d first woken had been the flagship of this Order, and the creature in the gold dress its leader.

“So, we won?” Ben asked hopefully.

His mother inhaled sharply.

“I mean – that ship was destroyed, right?” he checked.

“Did _we_ destroy it?” Rey inserted. “Me and Ben, I mean?”

His mother blinked, and then looked at her. “No, my dear,” she said, and Ben could feel Rey’s relief at the endearment, and took her hand under the table. “No, that was the action of a very courageous friend of mine.”

It sounded like this friend had not survived the experience, so Ben maintained a brief respectful silence.

Hi mother let out a heavy sigh. “You could say we won that particular fight,” she acknowledged. “But at great cost. And the war, I’m afraid, is just beginning. I lead a group known as the ‘Resistance’, who -”

“ _You_ lead it?” Ben interrupted.

His mother gave him a look, and Rey poked him under the table.

“Sorry,” he said. Gods, he clearly had no shortage of strong women in his life. “I just meant… um… ‘wow’, I guess? That’s… I mean… I’m proud of you.”

She looked completely disconcerted, glancing at Luke helplessly.

Ben reached over and patted her arm. “Go on,” he prompted. “Sorry to interrupt.”

With what seemed like a superhuman effort of will, but also somehow gave the impression that superhuman efforts of will were things she pulled off on a regular basis, she composed herself and continued, explaining that the Resistance was dedicated to opposing the First Order, and restoring democracy through the galaxy.

“But this last battle has cost us very dearly,” she said. “Although we have contacts spread across hundreds of planets, our core group is now so small that Chewie was able to rescue all of us in one trip on the Falcon.”

A rescue. So that was why he’d been so eager to leave after dropping them off on the island. Ben looked around. It wasn’t a huge space.

“We’ve now established a base in a safe location,” she went on. “And our numbers will grow, as they always do.” She sat up straighter, and Ben could see why this woman was the leader. “We are the spark, that will light the fire, that will burn the First Order down,” she said, and her words carried the weight of legend.

He looked at Rey. She looked back at him. They brought their joined hands out from under the table, and set them down on top of it, turning as one to look back at her.

“When do we leave?”


	9. Chapter 9

Rey took an absolutely, definitively last look around the hut she had shared with Ben, before not leaving for the third time.

She had dismantled their bed and returned the blankets to the chest she’d found them in, folded as neatly as she could manage - although neat folding didn’t seem to be a particular talent so it was probably just as well they’d be gone before the Caretakers were up in the morning.

The Jedi texts (well… all but one) were stacked near the door, with her blaster and lightsaber in the bag resting on top of them, and her quarterstaff propped up against the wall.

The hut looked bare and empty, more or less as they’d found it.

It was time to go.

She nodded sharply to herself. Before not leaving. Again.

It wasn’t that she didn’t want to go with Leia and join the Resistance. Or rather _re_ -join it, as it seemed that fighting with the Resistance must have been what they were doing before. It definitely sounded like the right thing to do – and it was Ben’s Mom, so of course they were going.

And it had been obvious right from the start that she and Ben weren’t destined to live out their lives quietly raising a family together on a little green planet in a peaceful corner of the galaxy. And that was all right. She accepted that. She had been ‘born’, so far as she remembered, to fires and dead bodies, and an almost immediate fight. But also to a connection with another human being that grounded and centered her, and meant that she was not alone. And she would take that. She would take it, and follow it wherever it led.

But just for right now, at this precise moment… she was standing in the only home she could ever remember having. And she didn’t think she was a particularly sentimental person, but this was where she and Ben had spent most of their time together. Where they had slept, wrapped in each other’s arms. Where she had woken each morning feeling secure and cherished, and knowing immediately that he was with her. Where they had really learned how to kiss one another. And where, during his short absences, she had explored her own body and worked out how to finish what he had started.

“We could come back someday,” Ben said from the doorway behind her. His deep voice made her jump, lost as she had been in her memories. 

“Really?” she asked, not looking round as he walked in. She leaned back against him as he wrapped both arms around her, bending to kiss her cheek. His hair was still damp – he had pretty much jumped in the fresher as soon as they’d got up from the table in the Falcon, and she had volunteered to fetch their things rather than risk a conversation on the theme of ‘appropriate methods of demonstrating affection to my son’ with Leia, who seemed lovely but with a distinct chance of ‘terrifying’.

“Really,” he confirmed. “According to Luke, the Caretakers will look after the place – he said it would be just the same if he returns.”

She twisted round in his arms and he loosened them enough that she could see his face comfortably. “Luke’s coming with us?” she asked, in surprise. For some reason she had assumed he would stay on the island.

“Yes.” Ben nodded. “I just walked up the steps with him – he’s getting his things together now.” He hesitated, then added, “Turns out he’s my uncle.”

“Your uncle!” Rey exclaimed, staring at him in astonishment. She may not have any family, and of course she wouldn’t remember them right now even if she did, but Luke’s welcome and behavior, did _not_ match what she felt was appropriate from an uncle. He was clearly even less of a people person than she had thought. Although…

“I suppose that might explain why he was so uncomfortable about us being together,” she thought aloud. “If he’d known you since you were a little boy, I mean. I guess it might feel a bit weird to him.” She suddenly had a mental image of almost unbearable cuteness.

Ben sighed heavily. “You’re picturing me as a little boy, aren’t you?” he said. “Gods help me if you and my mother get together.”

Rey immediately resolved to divert any potentially embarrassing chats with Leia down this particular path. She may not remember her own parents, but what mother wouldn’t want to show off their baby holos?

Ben was watching her face with growing dismay. “And now you’re intending to ask her about it.” He groaned, shaking his head. “I’m going to shut up now.”

Rey grinned at him unrepentantly. “Let me help you with that,” she said, stretching up on her toes, her hands sliding from his chest to around his neck as he bent to kiss her. They had gotten pretty damned good at this, she decided as she sucked on his tongue and, as had become increasingly inevitable, thought about sucking on something else. Would he let her do that? Would she like it? She certainly wanted to try. She had such an insatiable curiosity concerning everything about him, and she’d not even managed to get her hands on any not-publicly-exposed skin since that first time, when he’d been changing his clothes. Thankfully she had an excellent visual memory, but still. Perhaps now that he’d finally taken things a step further, more progress would follow. Gods, she hoped so. Because that had been amazing – if there was any way they could carry out their daily routines with his hands permanently attached to her breasts, she would be very much on board with that plan.

Eventually, she recalled that Leia had wanted to get moving as soon as possible, and also that Luke was nearby, and she supposed they should try not to traumatize the poor man any further – especially now they knew he was family.

“I didn’t expect you to come up here,” she said, although she couldn’t actually bring herself to stop kissing him, so the words got rather smudged by his lips. “I can easily carry everything myself,” she added indistinctly - the arm he’d so assiduously lavished with bacta was completely healed by now, and she had thought he would appreciate some time with his mother.

“Okay, I didn’t get the last bit,” he admitted, pulling back with clear reluctance.

She repeated herself, and he gave a small shrug. “I thought you might be… sad,” he admitted. “And also -”

The second part had to wait until she’d finished conveying how much she appreciated someone caring about her so deeply.

“And also?” she prompted, once she felt she’d got her message across.

He slowly peeled himself away from the wall she seemed to have somehow managed to push him up against and she backed up a pace to give him room, glancing back to their starting point in the middle of the hut and feeling quite impressed with herself.

“Right,” he said, making a visible effort to focus. “The other thing.” He looked over to where her bag was sitting near the door. “I think we should try to get your lightsaber finished.”

“What, now?” Rey frowned. “Didn’t your mother want to get going as soon as possible?”

“She did,” he confirmed. “But Luke insisted he needed time to collect something, so we’ve got a couple of hours. Apparently it’s buried up by the temple.”

“Perhaps we should help him?” Rey suggested. They’d only been up to the temple a few times and she wouldn’t mind seeing it again. “We can work on my lightsaber while we’re en route, can’t we?”

“I’m not sure,” Ben replied, a slight frown appearing on his face. “I asked my mother how long the journey would take, but she was very vague about it.”

“I guess she can’t do everything,” Rey mused. “She _is_ the leader of the Resistance after all - perhaps she leaves the piloting to Chewie.”

“I suppose,” Ben acknowledged. “Anyway, if we’re going off to join a group that are pitching themselves against the sort of firepower we saw on that Star Destroyer, I’d feel much happier if you had a functioning weapon.”

“I’ve got my blaster,” Rey pointed out.

Ben’s lip curled. “A _proper_ weapon,” he insisted.

She giggled. “You’re such a snob!”

He pulled a face at her, obviously being far too mature to stick out his tongue the way she was wont to do.

“Unless...” he hesitated, his expression becoming more serious as his hand slowly moved toward his hip. “Unless… you’d take mine?”

“Noooooo!” Rey exclaimed immediately. “No, that’s okay. No. Thank you. But no.”

His eyebrows rose. “What’s wrong with mine?” he demanded. “Oh… is it the color? I very much doubt anyone not Force-sensitive would know the color was significant at all - even you didn’t.”

“Nothing’s wrong with it, it’s lovely,” Rey lied determinedly. She had privately wondered more than once if the reason they couldn’t manage to fix _her_ lightsaber was because she was trying to draw the knowledge from _him_ , since his saber was, in her opinion, a hot mess - fizzing and crackling all over the place like a barely-functional ‘how not to…’ warning.

It was still a huge gesture for him to offer it to her, though. She did appreciate that.

“It’s very kind of you,” she said, looking up to where he was silently mouthing ‘ _lovely?!_ ’ to himself, his expression a combination of bafflement and indignation that she found quite adorable. Although she actually found most of his expressions adorable, so there was that.

“Very kind,” she repeated firmly. “But you don’t even have a blaster – I’m not leaving you defenseless.”

The indignation fell away and the bafflement was joined by a look of profound fondness. “Rey,” he said gently, cupping her face in one hand and reaching out with the other. One of the rocks from the fireplace rose in the air and hovered, until he clenched his hand into a fist, and it disintegrated into dust so fine it barely responded to gravity at all, wafting slowly to the ground on the tide of invisible currents. “Rey, I am not defenseless.”

Gods, did it make her a bad Jedi to find that as hot as she did? Luke may have agreed about ditching the ‘no attachments’ rule, but she wasn’t going to be much use in battle if she was overcome with lust every time Ben used his powers.

“We’d better get started on the lightsaber, or I’m going to have you up against that wall again,” she announced honestly.

His eyes widened and he flicked a quick glance to where their bed had been. Rey silently cursed herself for having dismantled it already.

“Are you sure about this?” he asked suddenly. “Joining the Resistance?”

She blinked, feeling like there must be some limit on the number of emotions one could run through within a five-minute period, and that she couldn’t be far from reaching it.

“What do you mean?” she asked, giving herself a little bit more time to get her head out of his trousers, so to speak.

“I mean, we’re talking about a war,” he said. His hand was still on her face and he stroked his thumb along her cheekbone. “Against an enemy of almost overwhelming physical force, according to my mother.”

Certainly Leia hadn’t tried to sugarcoat things. The situation as she described it was pretty much as dire as it could be. But she also had an unshakeable resolve that it was impossible not to be inspired by.

“They don’t have _the_ Force though, do they?” Rey pointed out. “Not since that Snoke guy died, anyway.” Leia hadn’t told them much about the First Order’s former leader – ‘ _Supreme_ Leader’ even… how pretentious was that?! – but he certainly sounded like a nasty piece of work. Rey was glad they’d killed him.

“Come on,” she said, taking hold of the hand he still had on her face and pulling him along to the doorway. She picked up her bag with the lightsaber in it. “Where do you want to do this?”

 

They’d been sitting cross legged on the grass for well over an hour by the time Luke came down the hill again, the lightsaber suspended between them, but still in two parts. Rey sighed and let it fall, putting the pieces back in her bag.

“Ready?” Luke asked, picking up the hiking pack he’d left by the door of his hut and slinging it over his shoulder.

They nodded, getting to their feet. “Did you get what you wanted?” Rey asked him, as Ben went back to collect the books and they set off down the steps.

He gave an affirmative grunt but offered no further information.

“So… you’re Ben’s uncle?” Rey questioned further.

Luke grunted again and picked up his pace, but Rey had no trouble keeping up with him. “On Leia’s side, or…?”

“Leia’s my sister,” he answered shortly, looking over his shoulder no doubt to check if Ben was going to catch up to them soon and distract her from pestering him.

“Do you not like me?” Rey asked abruptly. It hadn’t actually occurred to her before, but now that she knew Luke was family his gruffness seemed much more significant.

He stopped so suddenly she nearly tripped over her feet trying not to barge into him, but he’d turned enough that he was able to reach out a hand and steady her. He patted her awkwardly somewhere near her elbow.

“I like you fine,” he said. “I’m just… I’m not used to people. And now my sister’s dragging me off to meet a whole bunch of them.”

“Ah.” Rey nodded. “All right.” She beamed at him. Grumpiness was not a problem. She could deal with grumpiness.

Luke looked taken aback, but then nodded at her and turned back to the path, continuing his way down it.

“I’m sure people will be respectful, and not crowd you.” Rey tried to encourage him as she followed. “Chewie said you were the oldest living Jedi – they’ll probably be in awe!”

Luke snorted. “He can talk – he’s over two hundred!”

“Wow! Really?” Whatever knowledge she’d retained about Wookiees hadn't included their long lifespans.

“He’s good for another two hundred years yet,” Ben said, as he caught up to them, his arms full of books and with her quarterstaff slung across his body.

“Wow,” Rey said again, although a little sadly this time. If Chewie associated mostly with humans, as seemed to be the case, he was going to outlive an awful lot of friends. No wonder there always seemed to be an underlying sadness in his blue eyes.

When they reached the ship, she made sure to give him an extra heartfelt hug, which he returned before shambling off toward the cockpit.

Rey made to follow him, but Leia intervened, putting a hand on her arm.

“Perhaps you’d let Luke do the honors?” she suggested, raising her eyebrows in a _‘the distraction would be good for him’_ kind of way. Although he already seemed pretty distracted by the R2 unit, which had been beeping at him excitedly since the moment he'd boarded.

Rey regarded her doubtfully, the vision of a crashed X-wing at the bottom of one of the island’s inlets filling her mind’s eye.

“I promise he’s an excellent pilot,” Leia added, and of course it wasn’t Rey’s decision anyway.

“So, where are we going?” asked Ben, as Luke disappeared after Chewie, with R2-D2 hot on his heels.

“Come and sit down,” Leia said. “I think it’s time I told you a bit more.”

Rey didn’t think she’d ever seen a bum hit a seat so quickly, and hers wasn’t far behind.

“As I said, the Resistance has been reduced to a very small group,” Leia started, once all three of them were settled around the table. “Most of them know Rey, or at least who she is, but - and if your memory loss was caused by the Force, then I’m afraid I can’t explain why - only one of them has seen your face, Ben.”

Oh! Rey sat up straighter in her seat – Ben’s theory must be right! If he’d been working as a spy for a long time, that would explain why hardly anyone in the Resistance knew him! She opened her mouth, but Ben grabbed her leg under the table and she closed it again, resisting the urge to look at him curiously. Leia raised an eyebrow, and Rey smiled back at her as blandly as she could manage. She didn’t know why Ben wanted to keep his theory private, but it was enough that he did. It was his theory, after all.

Leia waited for a moment, looking from one to the other, but when it became clear that neither of them was going to say anything, she continued. “Finn has agreed to keep his knowledge to himself, although -”

“Finn!” Rey interrupted, excitedly. She’d meant to ask after that name earlier, before Ben had evilly distracted her with his little grope-fest. Not that she was complaining about that. Not at all. No, that had been… and now she was distracting herself. “The Finn you mentioned before?” she asked eagerly, determined to stay focused. “Who is he?”

Leia pursed her lips. “It’s probably best that people tell you their stories themselves,” she replied.

“Although what?” Ben asked.

She looked at him.

“You said ‘although’,” he clarified. “‘He’s agreed to keep his knowledge to himself, _although…_ ’.”

“Ah,” Leia nodded. “Well, when I spoke to him, I didn’t know you two were…” She waved a hand between them, and sent a pointed glance toward Ben’s neck.

Rey decided it was a good time to examine the overhead wiring. Until the hand Ben had left on her leg suddenly tightened almost painfully and she jumped, turning to look at him. He was staring intently at his mother.

“Does Rey have…” he started, but then stopped, his jaw working before he visibly forced himself to finish. “Has she got a boyfriend?”

Rey could feel herself paling. Oh, that would be just awful! She didn’t want anyone but Ben. She grabbed the hand he still had clamped to her leg and turned it over, lacing their fingers together. She didn’t want to hurt anybody… but she was not letting go of this man. Not for any number of boyfriends, cute or otherwise.

“No, I don’t think so,” Leia said, to the great relief of both of them, although Ben would clearly have preferred her statement without the qualifier.

“So why will our being together make a difference?” he asked.

Leia frowned. “This is very difficult!” she complained.

Rey and Ben exchanged ‘ _tell us about it_ ’ looks – if she thought dealing with amnesia was hard from that side of the mental fence, she should try it from their perspective.

“All right,” Leia muttered, casting a quick glance toward the cockpit and, presumably, Luke. She looked at Rey. “Finn is your oldest friend,” she said, keeping her voice low. “He is clearly devoted to you, but there’s no romantic connection, as far as I’m aware. In fact, he’s recently developed an affection for a girl called Rose, although I suspect his interests truly lie in quite a different direction.”

Rey was intrigued, but Ben was far more single minded.

“And our being together could be an issue _because_ …?” he pushed.

Rey and Leia privately exchanged a glance in which future gossip exchanges were scheduled and agreed upon.

“Finn is very protective of Rey,” Leia told her son. “He may well feel that it is… unfair on her to enter into a relationship when she doesn’t have her memories.”

“Like you did,” he said abruptly.

“Ah. You heard that.” Leia looked uncomfortable.

Rey had had enough. “Enough,” she said. She reached across the table to Leia, who took her hand, holding it in both of her own. Rey very much appreciated having people who were concerned about her, but she wasn’t a child. She could make her own decisions. “I may not recall who I was, but I know who I am,” she promised. She looked at Ben, allowing some of her feelings to show on her face, and then back to his mother. “And what I want.”

Leia squeezed her hand. “I must admit, when I first realized that Ben cared for you, I couldn’t have been happier,” she acknowledged, smiling. “It was only later that I started to have misgivings.”

Poor Leia. She must have been so worried about her son all this time, and now she had yet another concern to deal with. “Luke did say we had a ‘bond’ even before this happened,” Rey reminded, trying to reassure her. “I don’t know why we didn’t tell you about it, but I’m sure he’s right.”

“It’s been known to happen,” Luke declared, walking in with his small, domed shadow scooting along behind him. The little droid seemed completely devoted.

Rey frowned as a thought occurred to her. “I don’t know why no-one’s worried about _Ben_ getting involved in a relationship without his memories,” she wondered aloud.

He made a wordless noise of protest beside her.

“Probably because he’s the size of a bantha,” Luke said, after a short pause. “He can look after himself.”

Rey scowled, pulling her hand back from Leia and smacking it on the table. “ _I_ can look after myself!” she declared indignantly.

“Were you on your way somewhere, brother dear?” Leia suggested.

“Going...” He flapped an arm at her and stomped off towards the back of the ship, R2-D2 rolling after him.

Leia smiled at them apologetically. “Only one of us had diplomatic training,” she murmured.

“I heard that!” Luke’s bellow was already distant, but the affection in it was clear, and Leia chuckled in response.

“Does Ben have any brothers or sisters?” Rey asked hopefully. If she didn’t have any family of her own, she could at least find out more about the one she hoped to worm herself into.

“No,” Leia said, her face losing its merriment. “No, I’m afraid it’s just me and Luke.” She blinked rapidly, and then looked down.

Rey and Ben exchanged glances. Naturally, they wanted to know more… but they had the basic facts now, at least. Did curiosity over the details justify upsetting Leia further? It wasn’t as if they didn’t have plenty of other things to focus on. Rey waited, feeling that it should be Ben’s decision, and after a moment he shook his head. She smiled at him and they reached out to Leia simultaneously, each of them patting an arm.

“So, if the Resistance don’t know me, what will you tell them?” Ben asked, in a clearly deliberate subject change.

Leia had quickly regained her composure, and now she smiled, this time catching hold of Ben’s hand and gripping it. “That you’re my son,” she said simply. There was pride in her voice that warmed Rey’s heart, and she could see it was having the same effect on Ben. “And potentially a Jedi, just like Rey,” Leia went on. She released his hand to sit back, looking him up and down. “I must say, you certainly look the part.”

Rey took the opportunity to look at him too, as it seemed to be a socially acceptable time, and she very much enjoyed looking at him whenever possible. He was wearing lighter colored robes today, which suited him. Although in her heart of hearts – or possibly not actually her heart, but somewhere a little further south – she had to admit to a few regrets about the destruction of his black outfit. That had been… yeah. Good.

“And what’s the plan?” Ben asked, while Rey was still floating in a mental bubble of black leather and naked torsos. She blinked back into focus.

“Yes, the plan!” she agreed, just a little bit too loudly. She coughed. “Excuse me.”

“Well, there are several tasks I’ve already set in motion,” Leia told them, raising an eyebrow at Rey, but making no comment on her pinkening cheeks. “The first being to let the people of the galaxy know that Snoke is dead.”

She paused as if to give the grim satisfaction in her tone space to dissipate.

“And that the Resistance has survived, and will continue to oppose the First Order, and all that they stand for,” she continued, in that same determined voice. Then she sighed, looking perhaps near her actual age for the first time as her shoulders slumped a little. “Things have been very… difficult lately,” she confessed. “Too many losses.” Her eyes swam for a moment, but she blinked through it and managed a smile. “Soon we’ll start recruiting allies and rebuilding our forces, but for now I think we can take a little time to recover. The First Order has been dealt a major blow, and it will take them a while to reorganise.”

“How can we help?” Rey asked, feeling awful for her. For the first time, she realized that being without her memories might actually be giving her a reprieve from sharing the grief that Leia was clearly feeling. She was obviously overjoyed to be reunited with her son, and no doubt also her brother, as Luke seemed to have been on the island for a long time, but there was an underlying sadness that Rey could tell would take a long time to dissipate.

“My dear girl,” Leia said. “As Luke has come with us, you can continue your training with him. And we also found several ships and other tech at our new base that need attention, if you want more physical work – I don’t know if you remember, but you have a gift with broken things.”

Her eyes moved to Ben. “But what I would really like…” she said, pausing perhaps to give emphasis to her words. “Is for the two of you to get to know the people you’ll be working with. To make friends. Connections.” She grimaced. “All too soon we’ll be back in the thick of it, with lives on the line. It is the bonds between us that make us strong. Stronger than a conscripted army will ever be – you can ask Finn about that.”

Rey wanted to ask more, but sensed it would be pointless.

“So where is it we’re actually going?” Ben asked.

“Well, it used to be a school,” Leia replied. “Or more like a small university, really. Never a rebel base, so there’s no recorded connection to the Resistance - it’s on a small moon and completely off grid. It was run by a friend of my mother’s, actually, but has been empty for a while now.”

Ben opened his mouth again, but Leia held up a hand.

“There is one more thing I really must mention,” she said. “We do still have a couple of medical staff, and there is an operational, if small, medcenter. Rey, my dear, I suggest you visit as soon as possible.”

Rey glanced at Ben, but he looked just as confused as she was. “I’m fine,” she promised Leia. “Honestly. I did have a wound on my arm when we woke up, but Ben took care of it and it’s as good as new now – look.” She held out her arm, the scar barely visible.

Leia patted it. “Very nice, dear. And well done, Ben – I’m proud of you.”

He was visibly pleased.

“But that’s not actually what I meant,” Leia went on. She looked from one to the other of them, as if hoping they would magically guess what she was talking about. “No?”

They shook their heads.

“Very well.” She steepled her hands together and regarded them over the tops of her fingers. “I don’t know how wide-ranging your memory loss is, in terms of knowledge, but clearly things are _developing_ regardless.” She looked pointedly at Ben’s neck. “And much as I would love to have grandchildren some day -”

She was interrupted by Ben’s horrified, “ _Mom!_ ” He scrambled to his feet, almost falling out of the bench in his hurry.

Leia turned a serious face toward him and Rey watched in fascination as the years rolled back before her, this enormous man reduced to a mortified teenager in front of her eyes.

“I’m not joking, Ben Solo!” Leia insisted. “If you impregnate Rey, when we’re in the middle of -”

“ _Argh!_ ” He was clearly a hair’s breadth away from sticking his fingers in his adorably over-sized ears. He cast a panic-stricken glance at Rey. Mouthed ‘ _Sorry!_ ’ at her. And fled, disappearing towards the crew quarters as quickly as his fantastically muscular legs could carry him.

Rey slowly turned back to face Leia, who maintained her stern expression until he was out of sight and then laid her head down on her arms on the table in front of her, her shoulders shaking. Rey tentatively reached out and patted her, not sure what to do.

“We haven’t actually got anywhere near that point,” she said, hoping that would reassure the poor woman. “But I’ll go to the medcenter, I promise.”

 Leia sat up, her eyes streaming, but her face full of mirth. “Oh, I needed that!” she declared, audibly chuckling now. “I’m sorry, my dear – that must have been embarrassing for you. But honestly…”

“I’m not embarrassed,” Rey said, happy that she wasn’t crying. “I mean, I was about the bite mark, because I shouldn’t have done it - he’d asked to take things slowly and I got carried away. But I’m not embarrassed about anything else.” She nodded approvingly at Leia. “I think it’s a very sensible suggestion – I definitely don’t want to bring a baby into a world that I barely understand myself.”

“Oh, Rey.” Leia’s tears had almost stopped, but now they sprang forth again. She wiped at them impatiently. “You must forgive an emotional old woman,” she said. “In my own defence, it’s been a hell of a week.”

“Can I get you anything?” Rey offered, just as Luke appeared, carrying two steaming cups of… something – she didn’t recognize the smell.

“Go on,” he said to her, nodding back in the direction to which Ben had fled. “I can take it from here.”

“All right,” Rey agreed. She got up, then impulsively leaned down to Leia and hugged her, kissing her cheek. “Ben is a lucky man,” she murmured, wishing poignantly that she had her own mother here with them, too.

Leia hugged her back. “Yes, he is,” she replied.

Luke sighed. Heavily.

 

By the time Leia called to them that they were landing, Ben’s equilibrium was fully restored, and he had apologized for his sudden departure in a manner that Rey found most acceptable. She was just straightening her clothes when a thought occurred, and she started scavenging around the cabin, finding a locker that looked promising.

 “What are you looking for?” Ben asked, as she rooted through the contents.

“There must be something… a scarf or something, that you can put on,” she replied; but there was nothing suitable, although she did find an incredibly scruffy old jacket that smelled oddly appealing.

Leia shouted again, and she gave up. The bite must surely fade before long.

Ben caught her arm. “I don’t mind it, you know. You don’t have to feel bad.”

“I shouldn’t have done it.” Rey repeated to him what she’d said to Leia.

“Wait – that’s why you’re embarrassed?” he asked, as she straightened up and moved to the doorway. “Rey?”

“Of course,” she said. Surely it was obvious? “Why else would I be embarrassed?” She glanced up at him questioningly.

He looked nonplussed, his mouth working but nothing coming out.

“We’d best get a move on,” she said, taking his hand and leading him through the small galley area. They were almost to the main corridor when gravity seemed to take a sudden vacation, and she found herself suspended almost a foot off the floor, with the wall at her back and everything she could ever imagine wanting pressed up against her front.

“I lied,” he said, his voice a rumble against her chest.

“Huh?” she managed. Two consonants and a vowel. She felt that was pretty impressive in the circumstances.

“I don’t ‘not mind’ it,” he explained. “I love it.” He seemed to think this was some big revelation.

Rey recovered enough to roll her eyes. “I know you do,” she said. “You are _not_ subtle.” It wasn’t a complaint – she’d take honesty over almost anything else.

It didn’t make any difference, though. Whether he liked the result or not had never been the point - she shouldn’t have done it. The ends didn’t ever justify the means. She didn’t think so, anyway.

She tried to explain this to him, from her position being held half way up the wall, and he considered it carefully. Then he tipped his head to the side.

“Do it again,” he said. “I’m asking you to.”

She stared at him. The hands gripping her waist tightened.

“Mark me,” he said. “Please.”

_Gods!_

She leaned forward and pressed her mouth to his neck, kissing it gently. “Later,” she promised.

There were footsteps in the corridor and he slowly let her back down.

“I’ll hold you to that,” he swore quietly.

“You can hold me to anything you like,” Rey told him, as her feet touched the floor.

“No grandbabies!” Leia’s voice called just before she came into view.

Ben groaned. “I think I’m sympathizing more with Uncle Luke,” he murmured, as she rounded the corner.

“Come on, you two!” she exclaimed. “We’ve landed already!”

She led the way back to the communal area, where Luke and Chewie were waiting, Luke with a palpable air of tension about him.

“You’ll be fine,” Rey murmured to him, as they walked toward the exit door.

He grimaced, but managed a small smile. "Thanks."

Chewie hit the control panel and the door flew open, the ramp lowering. They all went down, Leia first, followed by Chewie, then Rey with Ben on her left, and Luke bringing up the rear.

Rey looked around eagerly. It was beautiful! They’d landed on a grassy area near a collection of low buildings. The suns were shining, and there was a pond nearby with some kind of aquatic birds splashing around on it. She wondered if the porgs would come out to investigate.

A small crowd had already gathered, with more people running up as she watched. She didn’t recognize anyone, not that she’d expected to, but several of them smiled and nodded at her. Rey smiled back, keeping hold of Ben’s hand – which wasn’t difficult as he was holding hers back just as tightly.

“My dear friends,” Leia said, in a ‘public speaking’ kind of voice. Rey gathered that part of being the leader was having to make speeches every time you came or went anywhere. “I am delighted to report that this first mission since Admiral Holdo destroyed the First Order’s flagship has been a complete success.”

She waved a hand towards the rest of them. “Many of you know Rey, although as I warned she currently has amnesia, but I’m sure she’ll be happy to get reacquainted. And with her is Ben. My son.” Her voice shook with pride. “Who also lost his memory during the battle in which they killed Snoke.” A heartfelt cheer went up – Rey presumed at Snoke’s death rather than at their memory loss.

“And this…” Leia turned to indicate the last of their party, who nodded his head gruffly, clearly completely uncomfortable with the attention. “This is my brother.” She paused and even though Rey knew it was for dramatic effect, that didn’t make it any less effective. “Luke Skywalker,” said Leia into the hush that had fallen, which lasted a few seconds more before everyone started talking at once, most of them also rushing forward so that the new arrivals were swallowed up in the crowd.

A young woman with blond hair in two buns on either side of her head offered her hand to Rey, who shook it. “Hi! I’m Kaydel Connix,” she introduced herself. “We only really met in passing, but I hope we can get to know each other better now.”

Rey smiled at her. “That would be lovely,” she agreed.

Kaydel turned to Ben who, after a brief hesitation, let go of Rey just long enough to shake her hand. “It’s nice to meet you,” he said, a little awkwardly.

Rey glanced up at him, surprised at his discomfort, although she supposed if he had been working among the enemy for a long time he might have got a bit rusty when it came to simple social interactions. What a tremendous strain to live under – she squeezed his hand with a little extra emphasis once it returned to her.

“Likewise,” Kaydel replied. She stepped a little closer, lowering her voice conspiratorially. “I didn’t even know Leia _had_ any children until she told us she was going to pick you up,” she reported, much to Rey’s surprise. “She certainly plays her cards close to her chest.”

A sudden commotion distracted them – a loud voice calling Rey’s name – and the crowd parted to let through a stockily built man whose whole face lit up at seeing her. This must be Finn, she assumed, although the thought barely had time to form before he’d flung his arms around her, hugging her so tightly she let out a startled squawk.

She could feel Ben’s concern, but also Finn’s affection, and his huge relief at her safe return. It felt, she had to admit, absolutely wonderful, and she hugged him back with her free arm, rubbing her thumb over Ben’s knuckles to reassure him that she was fine.

Eventually, Finn pulled back, gripping her shoulders and looking her over. “You’re all right? Really?”

She nodded, smiling back at him, and only then did he seem to notice the man at her side.

“Ben,” he said stiffly, nodding his head in an unconvincing impression of a welcome. Oh dear. It seemed Leia had been right about there being tension between the two most important men in her life. Rey sighed.

Finn’s gaze had left Ben’s face and travelled down over his robes before finally falling to their still joined hands.

He released Rey’s shoulders and stepped back, his eyebrows drawing together as his jaw tensed.

“Leia!” he called over his shoulder, his tone and volume rising on the word. “Leia, we need to talk!”

 


	10. Chapter 10

Leia steeled herself for a challenge as she led a Finn-shaped thundercloud into the nearest building, glad that Luke was also following them. Although possibly not as glad as _he_  had been to get away from the crowd.

She found an empty office and ushered the other two in ahead of her, Finn wheeling round to face them as soon as she closed the door. His chin was thrust out pugnaciously, his eyes burning with outrage. Such an earnest young man, this one. Everything turned up to eleven. Leia had already decided to let him talk first, as it would be easier to redirect the aftermath of the explosion than to try to contain it.

“ _That_ ,” he said emphatically, jabbing his finger in the direction they’d come from, “was not part of our deal!” He paced back and forth, words alone clearly not a sufficient outlet for his emotions.

“I went along with your crazy plan for the sake of the Resistance, but I _never_  agreed to sacrifice Rey!” His distress was choking him so badly, he could barely get the words out.

 “I think you’ll find that Ben -” Luke started, and Leia flinched in anticipation.

“ _Kylo!_ ” Finn roared. “That man is _Kylo Ren!_ You can change his clothes, you can dress him up, but that is the same man I saw throw Rey fifty feet through the air! She hit a tree! He knocked her unconscious!”

Leia winced. She knew, of course, that Rey had fought with… Kylo. Her son bore the scar from that battle right across his face. But it was still hard to hear a first hand account of his violence toward her.

“He could have killed her!” Finn ranted on. “He tried hard enough. _She watched him kill Han!_ And now…” He paused, his jaw working as he tried to regain enough control to let his feelings become words.

He didn’t mention his own injuries, Leia noticed. Ben had put him into a coma, but that wasn’t the source of his fury.

“And now,” Finn tried again. “Rey. Rey, who doesn’t remember any of this; Rey, who called him a monster; Rey is out there _holding his hand!_ ” His voice reached a crescendo and he stared from one of them to the other. “How could you do this to her?!”

That was her cue. Leia stepped forward. “Finn, I went through just these emotions when I saw them together.” Well, after her initial, instinctive happiness, but there was no need to mention that. “But people can change -”

“He hasn’t _changed_ – he’s just lost his memory!” Finn interrupted furiously. “If he’s even done that... How do you know this isn’t all just some act, to track us down and get rid of the Resistance once and for all?!”

Leia looked at him. There was no version of her son that had ever been able to hide his emotions, as Finn surely realized - Kylo Ren’s tantrums had been so legendary, even the Resistance had heard of them.

Finn’s eyes dropped first. “Yes, all right.” He waved his arm to dismiss that argument. “But my first point stands – even if this alter ego is genuine, he hasn’t _changed_  his mind, he’s just _lost_  it. Kylo Ren is still in there - and he could be back at any moment!”

“I took all the precautions we talked about,” Leia promised. “The new clothes were at least initially to get rid of any tracking devices. I kept both of them away from the cockpit on the way here and only told them _about_  our destination, not where it was. They’ve no idea we’re on Vladik 5, or even in this system, and Chewbacca deliberately took longer than needed to get here.”

It hadn’t been easy deflecting Ben’s persistent questions about where they were going – she’d even had to resort to giving them a ‘sex talk’, although she had to admit that had been surprisingly entertaining. And had very much served its purpose in making Ben effectively hide from _her_ , the whole time she’d been trying to hide something from _him_.

“I brought Luke just as I promised, so if my plan does fail, we have the other two strongest Force users in the galaxy right here,” she continued. Luke had thankfully not put up much of a fight about coming, feeling responsible as he did for Ben becoming Kylo Ren in the first place. But Leia would have insisted on him leaving Ahch-To anyway, now that Ben knew its location. She very much hoped for the best… but a general who didn’t plan for the worst would not last long. And Leia had lasted longer than most.

“But Finn,” she said, making sure she had his full attention. “Finn, when I said that people can change… I wasn’t talking about my son.”

He frowned, clearly confused.

“Think about what I told you last time we spoke,” she prompted. Anyone who thought _this_  conversation was difficult, had definitely not been there for that one. “We didn’t know then what had caused the memory loss, but we did know from Chewie that Rey went to the Supremacy of her own choice. She sent herself to Ben in a tiny escape pod, armed only with a lightsaber. And she hoped to bring him back. She believed that he would turn to the light.”

She reached out to touch Finn’s arm, establishing a connection between them. “Now, you tell me, Finn – does that match up with the Rey you remember? The Rey you haven’t actually seen since you were on Starkiller Base?”

The confusion in his eyes became tinged with doubt, and Leia pressed on.

“I know that Poe and Rey were your first real friends. I know they mean the world to you, and I’m not trying to undermine that. I spent many hours talking to Rey while you were in a coma, and I am certain that she cares just as deeply for you – you were _her_  first friend, too.”

He looked bolstered by her words, so Leia continued quickly. “But how well do you really know her, Finn? How much time have you spent together? Is the Rey in your head the whole person, or just the bits you want to see? She has a tremendous capacity for forgiveness. I know you know that.” The two women had barely left any topic uncovered during that long night after Starkiller Base, and Rey had told her all about Finn first pretending to be from the Resistance, and then running away in his desperation to flee the First Order. And also, of course, that he had come back for her… the first person in her life to do so.

“You want your friend back exactly the way you remember her, and that is understandable,” Leia continued, not unsympathetically. “But it’s also a fantasy, and you know it, Finn. It’s easy to point to the amnesia, but you know she’d changed before then. We already went through all this before I left – it’s why you agreed to my ‘crazy plan’ in the first place.”

It probably was crazy, in fairness. Maybe not the craziest plan she’d ever had, but certainly up there. But what else could she do? They’d been given a miraculous opportunity, and she couldn’t waste it. The chance to show ‘Kylo Ren’ another path… in the hope that he would want to walk it. To let him experience a life with friends, with family, being part of a team. All the things her poor lonely boy had wanted so desperately. Who knew if it would be enough to sway him, once his memories returned? But she had to try. She’d take what precautions she could to keep her people safe, of course, but the Resistance had just about run out of options, and the chance of bringing Ben back from the dark side… Well, as Rey had said to Luke - this could be how they won.

“I didn’t agree to _that_ ,” Finn retorted, jabbing his finger towards the doorway again, and it was obvious what had tipped him over this edge.

Leia’s eyes narrowed. “And does Rey need your agreement, to form a romantic attachment?” she asked.

He looked taken aback. “No,” he denied. “No, of course not. But she’s not herself - she’d never choose him if she had her memories!”

Leia sighed. “Luke,” she prompted, leaning back against a desk to take a breather while Luke explained to Finn what he had explained to her, about seeing the two of them holding hands in Rey’s hut, the bond between them so strong that Ben had been able to physically appear before her, light years away from his real location. He also described Rey’s conviction that there was still conflict in Ben – her certainty that he would turn if she went to him.

“No,” Finn shook his head. “No, she wouldn’t. She _couldn’t_ …”

“Finn,” Leia said gently. “Finn… she _did_.”

He no longer looked belligerent, but his distress had not waned. Even though he had – eventually – agreed to go along with her plan to bring Ben into the Resistance as her son, it was clear he’d mostly been focused on getting his friend back. But the Rey who had returned was not the Rey he had expected, and he hadn’t anticipated that at all.

“We can’t know what happened in that throne room,” Leia said. “But you probably have a better idea than most - could Rey have killed Snoke and eight Praetorian Guards, all by herself? Could anyone?”

“No, but -”

“They _must_ have worked together,” Leia went on. “And then… I don’t know. But Luke believes their amnesia was caused by the Force, so what are we going to do? Throw that away? If you march out there and tell them everything the Force made them forget, what do you see happening? Do you _want_  Kylo Ren leading the First Order?”

“No, of course not,” Finn denied. “But he shouldn’t get to have Rey,” he insisted stubbornly. He lowered his voice, perhaps in recognition of the fact that he was speaking of her son, but his words were still perfectly audible. “He doesn’t deserve her.”

“But that’s not your decision to make. Can’t you _see_ that?” Leia demanded. She felt for him, but she had an extremely low tolerance for possessiveness. “Rey is here on her own terms, Finn. Not yours. Not anyone’s. If she chooses to be with Ben, then that is up to her.”

He started to interrupt but she held up her hand and he did at least retain enough discipline to subside for now.

“I understand your fears about her actions being affected by her amnesia – I shared them myself. But after talking to Luke, after spending time with Rey, I’m satisfied she was already on this path. And that she is ‘herself’ enough to make her own decisions.”

“And how much of that is based on what’s best for your son?” Finn demanded.

Leia winced internally as his question struck a nerve. It was undoubtedly true that she was much more optimistic about the future since seeing Ben with Rey. She’d been hoping that friends and family would be enough to make him want to stay, but love… love was a much more potent motivator.

However, after much soul searching, she was as confident as she could be that she was doing the right thing. And she suspected that Finn was in no position to be questioning other people’s motivations.

“And how much of your anger is based on what’s best for _you_?” she asked him.

“ _What?_ ” He looked outraged.

Leia took a deep breath. He could blow her whole plan out of the water if he opened his mouth, but it was no good just slapping a bacta patch over this problem and hoping it wouldn’t explode at some future point – she had to get to the root of his issues now. After all, he hadn’t even seen the love bite yet…

“Who are you really angry at, Finn?” she asked him. “Is it Rey herself? Do you feel she has let you down? Forgiving someone you feel is unforgiveable?”

“He _is_ unforgiveable,” Finn swore. “Maybe we need him, in order to win. I’m not denying that. But afterwards he should go on trial for what he’s done.”

“And who will judge him?” asked Leia. “We are all that’s left.” Of course, others would come. The Resistance would recruit new members, make deals, strike up alliances. There was a whole galaxy to unite, and they would do it. They’d done it before. But Leia well remembered sending out a desperate plea for help… and no help coming. And no one who had ignored that cry would ever stand in judgment over her son.

She shook her head, dismissing the distraction. “We have a long way to go before we get to that point.”

Finn grunted an acknowledgement, and Leia sighed. She liked Finn. She liked him very much. But she needed him to see himself clearly.

“So, you’re angry with Rey?” she repeated.

“No!” he denied. “No, of course not! She’s not herself,” he repeated stubbornly.

“Forget the amnesia,” Leia instructed, inwardly managing an eye-roll at the incongruity of that request. “I know you’re concerned about her. I understand the worry over her memory loss affecting her decisions. I’m not doubting that you care for her. But you’re using it as an excuse. An excuse to do what you would want to do anyway.”

“I… what?”

“You want to take her away from Ben – fine, _Kylo_ \- don’t you?”

“Of course I do,” he replied. “What friend wouldn’t?!”

“One who cared about what _she_ wanted?” Leia suggested. “Or are you a friend only when you approve of her actions?”

“She doesn’t know what she wants!” he exclaimed.

“Really?” Leia challenged. “Is she in a coma? A vegetative state? She can’t think for herself?”

“She doesn’t know who he really is!” Finn insisted.

“She knew before though, didn’t she?” Leia pointed out. “She went to him, Finn. You’ve heard what she said to Luke. _‘If I go to him, Ben Solo will turn.’_ She was sure there was still light in him.”

“No,” he still denied, but more weakly.

“Yes!” she insisted. “Confirmed by both Luke and Chewbacca, even if she doesn’t currently remember it herself. She chose him.” Leia deliberately lowered her voice. “Isn’t that where the root of your anger truly lies? That she didn’t choose _you_?”

Finn gaped at her. “I’m not… we’re not…”

“No, but you’d like to be, wouldn’t you? Or at least to have her back just the way she was,” Leia pressed on. “You have this image in your head, and now the reality doesn’t match it - and here’s this handy excuse you can use to try to force her back into the mold you’ve made for her.” All her life Leia had felt at the mercy of roles and responsibilities – demands she’d felt obligated to meet, no matter the cost. But Rey was a free spirit, and Leia was damned if she’d let anyone crush that.

 “I wouldn’t…”

“You _are!_ ” Leia interrupted. “Search your feelings. Tell me that jealousy plays no part.”

Finn was quiet for a long time, before pulling out a chair from behind one of the desks and sitting in it, dropping his head into his hands. “I want what’s best for her,” he said, eventually.

“None of us can know that,” Leia told him. “And right or wrong, only Rey gets to make that call.”

After another long silence, Finn stood up. “Fine,” he said. “I’ll keep the secret.”

It was an effort for Leia not to slump against the desk behind her in her relief, but a lifetime of keeping her back straight and her chin up helped her to manage it.

“For now,” Finn went on, raising a finger warningly. “But if I see one _hint_ of Kylo Ren in him…”

“That’s fair,” Leia agreed. Finn had only seen one side of her son. And it was a terrible side. A terrifying side. But if Rey had met Finn even one day earlier, all she would have seen was a stormtrooper. His getting to know Ben could only help.

“Talk to him,” she urged.

“Oh, I will.”

 

***

 

Ben watched as his mother and his uncle disappeared with the man she had described as having _‘no romantic connection’_ to Rey. It now seemed distinctly possible that said man held a different view. Ben sighed. That could have gone better.

He looked around. Chewie had already headed off in a direction that Ben assumed must lead to food, so now he and Rey were left alone in a strange place, surrounded by strange people. Well, people they didn’t know, at any rate - they weren’t necessarily strange. Although they did seem to be unusually short, he decided, as yet another tiny woman approached them; so far he had met four Resistance members, and this was the third to be more than a foot shorter than him.

“Hi, I’m Rose!” she announced brightly. “I’ve never met either of you before, so you needn’t worry you’ve forgotten me!” She scrunched her face into a smile and Ben liked her at once.

Also... _Rose_ \- he recognized that name. He quickly squeezed Rey’s fingers then let them go, holding out his hand to the woman who, according to his mother, Finn had ‘developed an affection for’.

“I’m delighted to meet you,” he said, in his warmest possible voice, feeling that he already owed her a debt of gratitude, and also hoping she’d make a significant move on Finn as soon as possible.

“Uh-huh,” Rose replied somewhat dazedly, blinking at him. “I mean, I’m pleased to meet you, too,” she said, visibly collecting herself. “Both of you,” she added, taking a breath as her hand was released, and then turning her gaze to Rey. “I’m pleased to meet both of you.”

Rey shook her hand too, and Rose beamed at her. “I could show you around if you’d like?” she offered, as the small crowd began to disperse, everyone presumably returning to whatever they had been doing before their arrival. Or before Luke’s arrival, really, Ben decided – he certainly seemed like a big deal to the Resistance.

“That would be lovely,” Rey said gratefully. Ben nodded also, and their diminutive guide set off, pointing to things as she went.

“That’s the pond,” she said, pointing to the pond.

Ben wondered if he should explain to her how amnesia worked, but decided to keep his mouth shut, since he was favorably inclined towards this woman, and didn’t want to alienate her. He somehow felt like he alienated people a lot.

“And that’s the residential block,” Rose said, indicating a two-story building which was built, as were the others, out of an attractive sand-colored stone. ‘This place is _lush_  compared to a lot of places I’ve stayed,” she added. “It was some high-class college before the First Order attacked the Principal’s home world and she shut it down. We all have our own rooms – our own freshers, even! And proper beds!”

Ben might have wondered what kind of living arrangements she was used to, but the thought of being with Rey in a proper bed was so distracting, it was as much as he could do not to walk into the pond.

“There are lots of free rooms,” Rose told them, a hint of sadness tingeing her voice before she squared her shoulders and continued. “Most of us are in the singles on the first floor, but there are some two-person rooms upstairs, if you…”

“Yes,” said Ben immediately.

“Please,” added Rey.

Rose looked delighted. Perhaps she had been as happy to discover that Rey had a boyfriend, as Ben had been to find out that Finn had an interest in _her_.

“That one’s a load of offices,” she said, this time pointing to the building into which said Finn had disappeared not long before, hot on the heels of Ben’s mother. Ben wondered what they were talking about, and if she and Luke had managed to calm the man down.

“And next to it is what used to be a lecture hall, where the General has now set up her base of operations,” Rose added. _The General_? Did she mean his mother? Ben supposed she must do. He was the son of a General! He exchanged an impressed look with Rey, whose eyes were wide as she took everything in.

“It’s so green,” she said, squeezing his hand.

“The medcenter’s round the back of the lecture hall, by the way,” Rose said. “If you needed that at all.” Her smile was in no way suggestive, or indicating that she was thinking along the same lines as his mother, but Ben couldn’t help coloring anyway. He was glad the daylight was starting to dim.

“And over here…” Rose led them up a slight incline until a larger and more utilitarian structure was revealed, a little distance away. “Is where I spend most of my time.” She grinned. “I’m a mechanic, mostly – there were a few ships left here, but most of them need a bit of work. We’ve got time to have a look if you like, before the evening meal? Which will be…” she turned to point at the only building she hadn’t yet identified. “Over there.”

Ben felt it was safe to assume that this building already contained a Wookiee. Whether it would still have any food left in it by the time everyone else joined him, was another question. He hoped so. Something other than fish or seaweed would be a very welcome change.

“Definitely,” he nodded, feeling sure that Rey would want to see everything too, even though she wasn’t saying much – too busy swiveling her head in every direction, taking in all the scenery, no doubt. It certainly was a very green looking place.

Rose chattered as they walked, first telling them how much faith she had in the Resistance, despite their very reduced numbers, and then explaining why she had joined in the first place – that the First Order had stripped her home planet of materials and then used it as target practice, taking everything they had. Her previously upbeat tone became implacable as she spoke of their enemy, and Ben made a mental note never to underestimate this woman. He hoped that Finn deserved her.

“Ta-da!” she declared, making a sweeping gesture with her arm as they entered the hangar. There were indeed several ships, of various sizes and in various states of repair; Ben looked them over with interest. One of them had feet sticking out from under it.

“Oh, that’s Poe,” Rose said, following the direction of his gaze. “Come and say ‘Hi’.” There were several other people around, some of whom already looked familiar from the earlier greeting party, but Ben obediently followed Rose, and Rey followed Ben. In the sense that she walked in the same direction - but she was still turning her head from side to side as she took everything in, and not at all looking where she was going. Ben surreptitiously Force-pushed a couple of obstacles out of her path.

Unfortunately, the last such obstruction objected most strenuously to its relocation, and a loud string of outraged beeps heralded its return, before it rolled forward, extended a telescopic arm, and gave him a sizeable electric shock.

Ben managed to contain his wince, but it wasn’t easy. “All right, I’m sorry!” he told the droid, holding up his hands. “I didn’t realize you were -”

There was more angry beeping.

“Yes, well I see that now,” he agreed.

“He didn’t mean it,” promised Rey, whom he already knew understood binary just as well as he did. “He was worried I would trip over you.” She dropped down onto one knee and the little droid rolled right up to her, tipping its head forward as if trying to show her something.

“Hi,” said another voice, and Rey straightened up again as the droid immediately rolled over to the owner of the formerly protruding feet, who must have emerged at some point and was now standing in front of them, wiping his hands on an already dirty looking rag. He smiled warmly at Rey. “I’m Poe. Poe Dameron,” he introduced himself. “And this is BB-8.”

“Rey,” she said, indicating herself, “and Ben.” She shot Ben a quick smile before offering her hand to the man, who looked at it with some regret before raising his own to display his oil covered fingers.

“Sorry,” he said. “But I’m very pleased to meet you.” He turned to Ben. “Your mother means a great deal to me.”

“I…” Ben wasn’t sure what to say to that. His mother had wanted them to ‘make friends’ but for some reason his memory loss seemed to have taken with it any concept of how to actually go about doing that.

“Perhaps we can help?” he suggested, deciding an offer of assistance couldn’t be a bad start. “With the ship?” He didn’t recognize the model but it was clearly a light freighter, if considerably smaller than the Falcon, and he felt confident that he could figure it out.

Poe raised an eyebrow. “Do you know anything about ships?” he asked.

“Well, this one’s a Ghtroc 690,” Rey said, starting to walk around it. “It’s missing the laser cannon, but looks in pretty good shape otherwise.” She was peering underneath it by this point.

The two men exchanged an impressed look, before Poe cleared his throat and turned away, tossing the dirty rag on which he’d been wiping his hands into a nearby crate.

“Perhaps another day,” he said, waving a hand that looked no cleaner at all around the hangar. “Let me introduce you to everyone.”

It was getting dark by the time Rose led them over to the refectory building, Poe having gone off to wash before eating, and they had met more than half a dozen people, many of whom had shared their own stories of how and why they’d come to join the Resistance, and all of whom had been perfectly welcoming - giving Ben hope that he would not fail his mother too badly in the ‘making friends’ department. Obviously it wouldn’t be an issue for Rey. Who wouldn’t want to be friends with Rey?!

Rey herself had definitely picked up her pace now that they were headed toward food and she was right behind Rose as they went through the door. Ben was just ducking his head to follow them when a hand grabbed his arm. He immobilized his assailant without thought, turning quickly to see that it _wasn’t_ an assailant at all – of course it wasn’t, they were on the Resistance base, what had he been thinking?! He released the man at once.

“My apologies,” he said, as Finn staggered, trying to regain his balance after having his momentum so abruptly frozen and then restored. “You startled me.”

“Huh.” Finn got himself straightened out, which mostly seemed to involve adjusting his jacket several times.

Ben refrained from asking if he was all right, sensing it would be taken as an insult. He also had a strong suspicion about what the man wanted.

“I won’t hurt her,” he promised. “If you’re here to offer some vague threat along those lines.”

Finn huffed, clearly surprised, but he recovered quickly.

“Not so vague,” he replied, in a menacing tone. Well, as menacing as a non-Force user nearly half a foot shorter than Ben could be. It actually wasn’t a bad effort.

“If you hurt her…” Finn started, apparently still stuck on his original ‘threat’ track. Ben decided it was best to let him get it out of his system. “If you hurt her… there will be nowhere in the galaxy that I won’t find you.”

Well, that was _pretty_ vague, in Ben’s opinion. He couldn’t remember ever having threatened anyone, but he was confident he could do a much better job of it than that.

“I love her,” he said simply. If this man was also interested in Rey, it was best to be clear. “If she gets hurt, by _anyone_ … I won’t be hiding.”

Finn’s eyebrows appeared to be attempting to merge with his hairline, but after a long moment he nodded. “Right then,” he said. “Good.”

Ben cast about for something else to say. “Rose seems nice,” he offered eventually, wondering if there was some sort of handbook he could read. _‘How to talk to people who aren’t Rey’_. Something like that.

Finn shuffled his feet. “She is.”

“And Poe,” Ben added, debating whether just running through a list of people he’d met counted as ‘conversation’.

“Yes,” Finn agreed, “Poe is also very…” He seemed to run out of words.

“Nice?” Ben offered, helpfully.

Finn’s eyes fell on the door they were standing beside and a look of relief passed over his face. “Hungry?” he asked, already reaching for the handle.

Ben nodded.

“Excellent,” Finn declared, ushering him through.

The hall was quite large, and filled with circular tables designed to seat up to six people, although most of it was empty as the Resistance seemed very much inclined to congregate together. Ben’s eyes found Rey immediately, sitting with Rose at an otherwise empty table, her slightly anxious gaze already fixed on the door. She smiled around a mouthful of something that definitely wasn’t either fish or seaweed, and Ben followed Finn to the serving area with alacrity, filling a plate with as wide a selection as he could fit on it. A man who seemed to be in charge of the kitchen informed him that the place had come equipped with an exceptionally well stocked freezer unit, and that they were making the most of it.

His mother was at a table in the corner, together with Luke, Chewie – who clearly hadn’t managed to eat _all_ the food – and three others he hadn’t yet met, but who all had a look of seniority about them. She smiled at him, and nodded when he indicated that they were going over to Rey’s table.

Poe caught up to them just as they reached it, looking considerably cleaner than he had the last time Ben had seen him.

“Looks good!” he declared, eyeing their plates and slapping Finn on the back. His gaze roamed around the table. “Hello again,” he said to Rey. “Not hungry?” He looked from her almost full plate to that of Rose beside her, which was more than half gone.

Ben and Finn both snorted, then looked at each other, startled.

“Second helping?” Ben suggested, and Finn chuckled, apparently despite himself.

“Second helping,” he agreed.

“Thish ish weally good!” Rey told them, with more enthusiasm than clarity. She looked so happy, Ben could feel a completely fatuous smile taking over his face, but there wasn’t a thing he could do about it and, in truth, he didn’t much care. He was among friends here – he didn’t have to hide how he felt. He moved around to sit beside her, hoping that if she wasn’t in his direct eyeline he’d be able to concentrate on his food long enough to actually eat it.

Poe went off to get his own meal as Finn sat down across from them.

“So, you’re with the Resistance.” Rey stopped shoveling food into her mouth long enough to talk to Finn which, if he was her oldest friend, he would no doubt realize was a significant gesture. “That’s brilliant! Is that how we met? Or did we join together? How long have we known each other? No, I don’t suppose you can tell me that… Damn, this is hard!”

“I was a stormtrooper!” Finn blurted out.

Rey dropped her shovel. _Spoon_. He’d meant spoon. Rey dropped her spoon. She groped around for it blindly while still staring at Finn with her mouth open, apparently not realizing that it had fallen on the floor. Ben picked up his own, which he hadn’t yet used, and put it into her hand.

“A stormtrooper?!” she echoed at last, waving her new spoon around to emphasize her shock. “How did you get away?”

“Ah, now there’s a tale!” Poe exclaimed, clapping Finn on the back again as he dropped into the seat between him and Rose. “But I’m not sure how much of it we can share – we’d best check with Leia first. She was very clear about only giving you information you wouldn’t have known before.” He gave them an apologetic look, and patted Finn’s back a few more times. “Suffice it to say, he went on to become a true Resistance hero!”

“Nah,” denied Finn.

“Yes!” insisted Rose. “And he had no choice in becoming a stormtrooper in the first place,” she added. “That’s a general fact – I can tell them that,” she defended, as the other two looked at her. “The First Order take children and turn them into soldiers,” she said, with murder in her tone. “They steal them away. From their homes, from their families. They did it on Hays Minor, too.” That was the home world she had mentioned earlier.

“Hey, buddy,” Poe said loudly into the resultant silence, nudging Finn’s arm with his elbow. “Guess what happened when Ben met BB-8?”

Finn took the jostling in his stride. “What?” he asked, looking at Ben slightly warily.

"Tell him, Ben!” Poe demanded.

“It zapped me,” Ben reported, drily.

“No way!”

It seemed that getting mildly electrocuted had been well worth it, as apparently Finn’s first encounter with the little droid had been remarkably similar. This led on to a wider debate about droids misusing their power, with everyone throwing in their opinions. Rey was on the side of the droids in at least 95% of the cases quoted, and the number would probably be higher had it not been for that one that had clearly malfunctioned, if what Rose reported was correct.

He was enjoying himself, Ben realized, as friendly argument swirled around him. This didn’t feel familiar in the slightest – not that much did – but he liked it. Rey squeezed his leg under the table.

By the time both meal and debate were over, Rey was looking distinctly sleepy and Ben raised an eyebrow at Rose, who nodded.

“Come on,” she said. “Let’s find you a room.”

Finn’s expression soured, as it had done a little earlier when he’d spotted the bite mark on Ben’s neck, but he still managed a, “Good night,” which Ben felt was significant progress for day one.

Poe also wished them well, and they walked over to his mother, who took a moment from the intense conversation she was involved in to stand up and hug them both. He kissed her cheek, as she’d seemed to like that last time, and then finally Rose led them over to the residential block.

They followed her up the stairs and a little way down a corridor, where she came to a halt.

“I think this one’s free,” she said, pressing her palm to the reader by the side of the door, which immediately slid open. “Yes – there you go.” She waved them into the room, which was spacious and well appointed, with a large bed at which Rey was already goggling. “Do you know how to register your prints?” She indicated the palm reader and Ben nodded.

“Great,” she said. “You should find everything you need in the fresher.” She nodded to another door. “And there’s probably a selection of sleepwear and so forth in the closet over there – there is in most of the rooms.” She looked around a final time, and then nodded briskly. “I think that’s everything. Just head over to the refectory in the morning, whenever you’re up – there’s bound to be someone around.”

“Thank you, Rose,” Ben said, with all sincerity. “You’ve made us very welcome. It’s much appreciated.”

“Yes, thank you, Rose!” Rey chimed in, before her words were overtaken by an enormous yawn. “Sorry,” she apologized.

Rose chuckled. “Aaaand, I’m going… Good night, both. See you in the morning.”

“Good night, Rose,” they said in unison, and she was gone.

Rey nodded toward the fresher, “Do you mind if I go first?”

“By all means,” Ben replied. He very much wanted to kiss her, but he could wait. The sooner they’d both got ready for bed, the sooner they could both be _in_  bed. Together. And he had been looking forward to that all afternoon.

Rey smiled at him. “Come here,” she said, and he was glad of the long legs that conveyed him to her almost before she’d finished speaking. She tipped up her face and he stooped down, kissing her sweetly, but not drawing it out.

She was smiling again as he pulled back. “I think I’m beginning to recognize your _‘I want to kiss you’_ face, she said. She sounded so proud of herself, Ben didn’t have the heart to point out that that was just his face. He always wanted to kiss her.

By the time she emerged, he had registered his palm print on the reader, so the door was secure. A lockable door was quite the treat – for someone who complained as much about unwanted sights as Luke did, he had a surprising tendency to barge in without knocking.

Ben had also located a range of sleepwear, although he didn’t know what she would favor and he was trying not to think too much about it for fear of embarrassing himself. He left a selection on the bed, and took his own into the fresher with him, showering in record time and not even bothering to wash his hair, since he’d already washed it earlier, on the Falcon. Although that seemed like a very long time ago.

He’d spent the entire time he’d been in here debating what to put on, and he was still no nearer a decision as he finished drying himself. Just the loose trousers seemed the most natural to him – what he would wear, all other things being equal. But all other things _weren’t_ equal and he couldn’t make his mind up whether or not going out there shirtless would be too forward.

He put the trousers on, as they were a definite, but dithered for another full minute before finally discarding the top that went with them. Gathering up all his clothes and holding them in front of his bare chest like a blushing virgin – which he might just as well be, for all he remembered – he opened the door, his heart already beating stupidly fast.

She was asleep.

Face down, wearing a black sleeveless vest top that came half way down her thighs, and not much else that he could tell – other than the one arm wrap she’d only got halfway through unraveling – and taking up an unfeasible amount of bed, there she was. The love of his life. Passed out in a food coma on their first night together with a private room and a proper bed.

Gods, he adored her.


	11. Chapter 11

It was a feeling of coldness that first woke Rey the next morning. Coldness and just a general sense of dissatisfaction. And a noise. Coldness, dissatisfaction, a noise, and… _no Ben_. That was it. That was what was wrong. Nailed it.

She snorted sleepily to herself, impressed that she’d managed such a significant deduction despite so few brain cells yet reporting for duty. Those same few cells were just deciding that another five minutes of sleep wouldn’t hurt anybody, when the noise repeated itself, and gradually a further deduction was established: Ben was in the fresher. Gods, she was on fire today.

There was a click as the fresher door opened behind her and she rolled over, forcing one eye half open, and with a smile already on her lips.

“Good mo -” Her mouth stopped working at the exact moment her half-open eye registered what it was seeing, and she shot up into a sitting position, desperately rubbing the sleep out of the other eye, while goggling with the first one. Shirtless Ben. Ben without his shirt. Chest. Ben’s chest. _Gods_.

“Good morning,” he replied, and she was sure he was doing his proud/bashful face, but there was no way she was going to check just at the moment.

“Have you been like that all night?” she demanded, finally getting her sleep-clogged eye up and running, and able to take in more of the vision before her. So far as she could tell, he was wearing nothing but a pair of loose trousers. Rather low-slung loose trousers, that provided considerably less coverage than the leather ones he’d been wearing the last time, so there was a whole new area exposed to her desperately eager gaze. It occurred to her that the only problem with having such a large boyfriend, was that there was so _much_ to look at – more than she could easily take in from such a close distance. But obviously she was never going to ask him to move further away, because that would be contrary to the laws of… well, she couldn’t actually remember any laws, but there must be a Galactic Convention about it, at the least.

“Um… yes?” Ben replied uncertainly, hovering by the door.

“And you slept here?” She spared a lightning quick glance to her left, noting the pulled back sheet and the impression in the pillow beside her own. “With me?”

“I… y-es,” he said, slowly. “Is that all right? I didn’t do anything!” he added in a rush. “Well, I took off the rest of your arm wrap, because you’d obviously started to do that before you fell asleep.” He nodded to the side, where she remembered seeing a low table, and she looked over to see her clothes folded much more tidily than she could ever imagine doing herself, with her arm wraps rolled neatly on top of the pile.

“And I was afraid you’d get cold, so I picked you up to put you under the covers,” he continued. “But nothing more. I would never do anything inappropriate while you were sleeping.”

Rey shrugged. “I don’t suppose I’d mind,” she said, privately cursing that she’d missed a whole night of topless cuddles, not to mention him picking her up, which she suspected was something she was very much going to be into.

“No,” he said, and something in his tone drew her gaze up to his face at last. He was frowning, although not at her – his focus seemed to be turned inward. “No,” he said again.

Rey beckoned him back to the bed and he moved forward obediently, sliding in beside her as she shuffled a little higher before lying back down. She raised her arm and he rolled onto his side, settling his head on her chest and wrapping a heavy arm across her middle.

“Is that a ‘thing’?” she asked, bringing her other hand up and stroking her fingers through his hair. “Like me being afraid that you would leave?”

He made a low noise, snuggling into her a little more and curving his body as if trying to make himself smaller. “I don’t know.”

She frowned. They both seemed to have these issues - things they still felt, even if they didn’t remember why. As if they were so deeply ingrained that even amnesia couldn’t delete them entirely. She’d already recognized his need to feel wanted, which was why she’d never tried to hide how he affected her. That one actually worked out very well since hiding how he affected her would be pretty much a full time job, and she suspected that dissembling was not one of her strengths anyway.

But this… She didn’t like this at all. If someone had done something while he was sleeping that had proved so traumatic it had left this strong a legacy… whoever that person was had better hope they were far away from her when she got her memory back. She tightened her arms around him, holding him to her as fiercely as she could. Which was pretty damned fiercely.

“I’ll protect you,” she promised.

He squeezed her back. “I know.”

There was a tap on the door. “Excuse me,” a tentative, but rather officious sounding voice called. “Master Ben? Are you in there?”

Rey groaned. “Topless cuddles!” she wailed quietly.

Ben chuckled, raising his head to kiss her before rolling himself away. “If you manage to avoid another food coma tonight, perhaps we can try that for both of us?” he suggested, sitting up. “Coming!” he called out in the direction of the door.

“Well, I'm definitely getting closer,” Rey muttered, under what little breath she had left after the statement he’d just made.

He gave her an exaggerated ‘fake shocked’ look, which was definitely mostly comprised of genuine shock, and pulled on a shirt before going to the door. She watched the tragic disappearance of his torso, and resolved to limit herself to one helping at dinner tonight, no matter how delicious it was. And no cake. Or, at least… just a small piece.

The interruption proved to have been made by gold colored droid who tipped his head back with an, “Oh, my!” as Ben opened the door, as if he hadn’t expected him to be so tall. But he recovered quickly.

“Master Ben! How wonderful to see you again. I am C-3PO: human-cyborg relations.”

“Hi,” said Ben, and waited. Rey got out of bed and walked over to join him, Ben automatically putting his arm around her as they surveyed the droid together.

Eventually, C-3PO seemed to realize that more was expected of him. “Oh! My apologies!” he exclaimed, bowing slightly to Rey. “The Princess wonders if you would care to join her for breakfast?”

There was a princess now? Rey looked at Ben, who shrugged back at her.

“What princess?” he asked the droid, who made a jerking movement which in a human being would no doubt be described as a ‘flail’.

“Why, Princess Leia, of course, Sir.” He looked from one to the other of them. “Oh dear. R2 told me you’d been informed that she was your mother – that useless glob of grease! Getting it wrong as usual. I’m very sorry -”

Ben made several attempts to stop this flow, before eventually just talking over it. “We know about my mother!” he announced loudly.

“We just didn’t know she was a Princess,” Rey added. How could one person have so many titles? She rubbed Ben’s side, where her arm was around his waist. His mother was a lot to live up to.

“Give us…” Ben looked at Rey. “Fifteen minutes?”

She nodded, and took herself off to the shower. If topless cuddles were no longer on the cards, then breakfast certainly sounded good.

When they emerged from the room, C-3PO was still waiting there – perhaps he thought they’d forgotten the way to the refectory. He started chattering as they made their way out of the building, reciting everything he knew about amnesia, including the statistical chances of them never getting their memories back at all (thankfully, relatively low), the odds of one of them remembering, but not the other (the math of which she didn’t follow at all), and the likelihood of them forgetting all their new memories when they regained the old ones – which thought was so horrible to contemplate that, after exchanging an appalled glance with Ben, Rey cast about desperately for something to distract this tactless droid.

“So, if Leia is a Princess, does that make Ben a Prince?” she asked. Ben gave her an embarrassed look, but it did at least set 3PO off on a different track. And while nothing would change how she felt about Ben, what girl wouldn’t want to know if she was dating a prince?! Unfortunately, the reply was peppered with so many _‘Oh, I can't tell you that!'_  and _'Not that either!'_ s that she was no nearer an answer by the time they arrived.

After breakfast, Rose took them back over to the hangar and Rey gleefully dove into crawling around ships and tinkering with anything that wasn’t actually nailed down… as well as a few things that were. Ben stuck with her at first, but it was clear that getting covered with oil was not his idea of a fun day and after a while she managed to convince him to go and join Leia, who had headed off to her operational center in the old lecture hall immediately after breakfast. It would be good for him to spend some time with his mother and, if she was honest, the planning / strategy side of things didn’t interest Rey much more than rewiring calcinators appealed to Ben. And that was okay. They didn’t have to be together every moment in order to _be_ together. Leia had wanted them to make friends, and Rey thought that might be easier when they could talk to people one-on-one, rather than always as a double act.

Her theory was proved correct almost immediately as Rose came over to join her, and they worked companionably together for a couple of hours on the power converter of a non-operational shuttle.

“So… you and Finn?” Rey said leadingly, once she felt sufficient groundwork had been laid.

Rose dropped her pilex driver, a blush staining her cheeks as she scrambled to retrieve it.

“Sorry,” said Rey.

“That’s okay,” Rose replied. “I just… I’ve never really talked about things like this with anyone but Paige. And now she’s gone, I…”

Rey hesitantly reached out a hand to the other woman’s shoulder. Rose had already spoken about her sister and Rey felt bad for reminding her. She apologized again, but Rose shook her head.

“No, don’t feel bad – you’re not reminding me that she died. I never forget that,” she acknowledged, with a wobbly smile. “You’re reminding me that she lived. And that’s always a blessing.”

Rey squeezed her shoulder. “You can talk to me?” she offered. “If you like? I hope we’ll be good friends.”

Rose’s smile grew less tearful, and she nodded firmly, wiping her eyes on her sleeve. “Yes,” she said. “Yes, please.”

The two women smiled at each other, until Rey said again, “So… about Finn…”

Rose laughed, turning back to the panel she’d been working on. “You’re a single minded woman, Rey -” She paused. “Wait – do you have a second name?”

Rey shrugged. “Not one I remember. Although that doesn’t mean much,” she added, resignedly.

Rose winked at her. “I bet someone would be happy to share…” she suggested, waggling her eyebrows so hard they looked as if they were trying to crawl off her face.

“What do you mean?” Rey asked.

“Ah, well it’s not a widespread custom,” Rose admitted. “But on my home planet, sometimes one person would take the other’s name when they got married. I had a friend whose family name was Kark, and you can bet he dumped that as soon as he could!”

 _Married?!_ It was Rey who was blushing now, but then her eyes narrowed. “Nice try,” she said, acknowledging the attempted distraction.

Rose chuckled.

“We don’t have to talk about Finn, if you don’t want to,” Rey offered, after they'd worked in silence for a while. “You could tell me more about Hays Minor, if you like? I don’t know what my home world is, although Ben thinks it was probably a desert planet.”

“Oh, really?” Rose answered, giving nothing away. “Why’s that?”

Rey shrugged, rooting through the toolbox for the wrench she needed. “Something about the metaphors I use. Oh, and how much I liked the rain, on Ahch-To – he said only someone who was used to water being a scarcity would be so fascinated to see it falling from the sky.” That had actually been more of a grumble than an observation, but she felt the deduction held up.

“He’s pretty smart, huh?” Rose said, sounding impressed.

“Definitely,” Rey agreed emphatically. “He reckons we could work out a lot about ourselves just from what flora and fauna we know.” She found the torque wrench and turned back to her task. “But we decided we shouldn’t try. It seems like there must be a purpose behind whatever’s going on with us, and since everyone’s working so hard to respect it – we should at least do the same.”

“Wow,” said Rose. “I’m not sure I’d be able to resist trying to find out more, if it was me.”

“Well, I didn’t say it was easy!” Rey admitted. She was tempted to share Ben’s ‘spy’ theory, but decided she’d best not. He had kept it from his mother, after all. She made a mental note to ask him about that.

“How’s it going, guys?” Poe shouted from below where they were working.

“Good!” Rose called back. “Give it a try.”

There was a whirring noise as he turned on the engine, and the converter they’d been working on showed some signs of activity, but then it sputtered and died.

“Damn it,” Rose muttered. “Give us another half hour,” she shouted down to Poe. “We’re nearly there, I’m sure of it.”

“Will do,” he called back. “Don’t forget to hydrate! There’s some caf down here, although I can’t say I’d recommend it.”

“He’s a good Commander,” said Rose, as he left them to it. “Well, a good Captain now, I suppose. But he’s a good man.”

Rey glanced at her. “Why do I get the feeling that’s not entirely ‘good’ news?”

Rose squirmed. “No, it is. Of course it is. I like Poe. Everyone does. I like him very much.”

Rey waited.

“It’s just…” Rose added eventually. “I think Finn likes him, too.”

“Okaaay,” Rey said slowly, confused. “Is there some reason he shouldn’t?”

“No, absolutely not,” Rose replied. “No. Forget I said anything.”

“You _didn’t_  say anything!” Rey protested. “Is this another thing you’re not allowed to tell me? Gods, this is frustrating.” She applied her wrench with a little more force than needed and cursed as the bolt she’d been loosening flew off and bounced away. Glancing quickly round to ensure Master Luke hadn’t unexpectedly popped up ready to sigh at her, she used the Force to bring it back.

“Oh!” she exclaimed, a few minutes later. “ _Oh!_ ”

“Yep,” said Rose.

 “You mean he _likes_  him, likes him,” said Rey, looking at the wrench in her hand and wondered if she should smack herself over the head with it. Clearly something needed to be done to knock some sense into her.

“Uh huh.”

“Right!” This must be what Leia had meant by her _‘I suspect his interests lie in a different direction’_ comment, back on the Falcon, that Rey hadn’t yet had a chance to ask about. She nodded to herself. Yes, definitely scheduling in some ‘girl time’ as a regular thing in her life. She was never going to get the low down on what was happening if she was constantly attached to Ben, no matter how perfect he was. And he would no doubt be happy to hear that Finn’s romantic inclinations were aimed elsewhere - she had tried to reassure him that she only felt friendship vibes between the two of them, but he hadn’t seemed convinced.

“And you, of course,” Rose said.

Ah.

“He’s been crushing on you as long as I’ve known him.” Rose sighed. “To be honest, I think he’s at least slightly attracted to anyone who uses his name, ever since Poe gave him a proper one. You know he was a stormtrooper until recently, right? I don’t suppose many people have ever been nice to him.”

There was a question raised by that statement, but Rey mentally shelved it for now. “And what about you?” she asked. “How do _you_ feel?”

Rose sighed again, tapping her hydrospanner against her chin thoughtfully. “I don’t know,” she admitted. “If you’d asked me even a day ago, I would have said I liked Finn. _Liked_  him liked him, I mean,” she added pointedly.

“Yes, all right, I’ve got it.” Rey pulled a face at her.

“But now… Now, I’m not so sure. So much has happened, and losing my sister, and seeing how you and Ben are together… I don’t know. I think maybe I just latched onto Finn because he was _there_ , and not because he was _Finn_ , you know?”

Rey nodded.

“What do you think?” Rose asked.

“I think Ben’s not the only smart one around here,” Rey said, honestly.

Rose looked pleased. “As for Poe, it’s hard to tell with him,” she said. “He flirts like breathing, but I’ve never seen him take it further. I think he might be a closet romantic, actually – did you know he wears his mother’s wedding ring on a chain around his neck? Kaydel says she asked him about it once, when he’d had a few Tevraki whiskies, and he said he was ‘waiting to give it to the right partner’.”

They both made the Galactic Standard noise for wistful affection.

“We should find out!” Rose declared.

“Find out what?” Rey asked, reaching for the engine tape. As fair as she was concerned, this repair was almost done.

“Whether Poe likes Finn, of course!” Rose replied.

“Really?” Rey queried. “Will that not be upsetting for you, if you like him yourself?”

Rose shook her head. “Nah. The more I think about it, the more sure I am that it’s not the right time for me. I mean, I love Finn. I do. He’s a wonderful person. But… I want someone who looks at me the way Ben looks at you.”

Rey tried not to look smug, but it was really, really difficult.

“Or at least the way you looked at that glaze cake,” Rose added, keeping her face straight for a full two seconds before dissolving into giggles.

Rey chucked the engine tape at her. “So how do we do it?”

“I don’t know,” Rose admitted. “Maybe Ben could help? Talk to him ‘man-to-man’, or something like that?”

Rey was doubtful. “I don’t think talking is Ben’s strong suit,” she said.

Rose snorted. “Well, I’m sure he makes up for it in other areas!” she chortled, with a much dirtier laugh than Rey would have anticipated from her before this conversation. “Gods, that is a lot of man you have right there,” she sighed.

“I know,” Rey agreed, sighing with her.

“I mean - he’s not my type at all,” Rose added quickly. “I’m not lusting after your boyfriend. But stars, he’s pretty.”

“He is,” Rey could not help but agree.

“And the hair!”

“Gods, yes!” Rey nodded fervently. “The hair is… yes. Very much.”

They both worked in silence for a couple of minutes, contemplating the fantastic-ness that was Ben’s hair.

“So, what _is_ your type?” asked Rey, once she’d done as much as she could do, repair wise. “Someone more like Finn?”

“I don’t know, really,” Rose replied, clearly thinking about it. “I’m not sure the outside matters so much. But someone with a strong moral sense, for sure.”

“Right,” agreed Rey.

“And it would probably be best if they weren’t too tall,” Rose added. “I mean, look at me - I don’t want to have to erect scaffolding before I can kiss them.” She paused for a moment, and then grinned wickedly. “If erections are involved, I’d rather they be the fun kind!”

“Rose!” Rey exclaimed, just as Poe’s head appeared by their feet.

“I’m not going to ask…” he said, rolling his eyes amiably as Rose cackled and Rey smothered her chuckles behind her hand.

She couldn’t help checking for the necklace Rose had mentioned, and sure enough a chain was visible, although she couldn’t see what was suspended from it.

“How go the repairs?” he asked.

Rose had refocused on the panel in front of her and now she nodded, dropping her hydrospanner back into the toolbox with a flourish.

“Done!” she declared. “Let’s test it.”

They all scrambled down the ladder and then Rey and Rose stood to the side as Poe climbed into the cockpit. Various other staff, some of whom had introduced themselves the day before, wandered over to join them, and there was a general feeling of hopeful anticipation in the air.

Poe turned on the engine… and it worked! The shuttle was officially back on-line. The group exploded into cheers, everyone slapping Rey and Rose on the back and congratulating them on a job well done. And while it struck Rey as sad that the Resistance had been so diminished that they would celebrate such a small victory… in that moment, she didn’t care. She had been useful, and she felt part of something; a sense of belonging that almost overwhelmed her.

“You okay?” Rose mouthed at her, as some of her emotions must have shown on her face.

Rey nodded. “I’m good.” And she was. Until the main doors banged open and Ben swept in like a tornado, coming straight at her.

He slowed before reaching her, clearly taking in the scene and seeing that she was fine.

“Hi,” he said, his fake-casual tone at dramatic odds with his breathlessness and the fact that the door was still rattling on its hinges behind him. He swept a hand through his hair. “How’s it going?” he asked, smiling round at the group, but reaching out to put his hand on the small of Rey’s back, and she could feel the relief pouring off of him.

Poe had already jumped down from the ship and now he looked from one to the other of them. “Everything’s fine,” he said, a little warily, settling his gaze on Ben. “Rey and Rose fixed the shuttle.”

“That’s great!” Ben exclaimed, just a bit too loudly. “Well done.” He nodded at Rose and then looked down at Rey and she was dimly aware of everyone moving away from them, but mostly focused on his face and the way his eyes were darting all over her as if he wanted to strip her naked and check every inch for injury. And while she wouldn’t mind the first part (in private, at least), she didn’t want him to be worried.

“I’m absolutely fine,” she promised him quietly. “What’s wrong?”

“Step outside for a minute?” he requested.

She nodded, glancing round for Rose, who was over by the caf dispenser but keeping an eye on her. Rey gave her a small wave and Rose raised her mug in response, also throwing in a wink when she saw that Ben wasn’t looking.

The moment they were out of the building, she was engulfed. Ben wrapped both arms around her and simply lifted her off her feet, burying his face in her neck and breathing deeply.

“What is it? What’s wrong?” she asked again, putting her arms around his neck and stroking a hand through the hair she and Rose had so recently been admiring. “Ben?” she prompted, when he didn’t say anything.

It was a full minute before his hold eased sufficiently that she could pull her head back far enough to look at him, and that seems a long time when you’re suspended off the floor with no idea of what’s happening.

“Sorry,” he said gruffly, looking better but still a long way from relaxed. He made no move to put her down.

“Talk to me,” she said firmly, pushing a stray lock of hair out of his eyes.

“I will,” he murmured, but those same eyes had already fallen to her lips. “In a minute.”

He kissed her as if he hadn’t seen her for a year, and had feared he never would again, taking a couple of paces forward until her back was against the wall, which was thankfully a smooth one made from some kind of wooden boards, and not unforgiving stone like the other buildings.

Unable to resist as she had done the last time he picked her up like this, she wrapped her legs around his middle and kissed him back, doing her best to offer him whatever reassurance she could, even though she didn’t understand why he needed it. He needed it, and that was enough.

His arms had lowered to support her hips and he was leaning almost his whole weight against her and Rey clutched at his back with one hand and buried the other in his hair, tightening her legs around him and almost wishing she had more limbs so she could wrap them around him, too, and where this would have ended she didn’t know, but the door they’d emerged from suddenly banged and they simultaneously realized that they were in a public place, right outside a building full of people, and now definitely wasn’t the time for this.

Ben pulled his head back, and rested his forehead against hers; breathing heavily for a few inhales before starting to talk. “I felt a burst of strong emotion,” he said, and it took her a moment to realize he was explaining why he’d run to her in the first place. “From you. Just a blast of it, out of nowhere, and I couldn’t tell…” He sucked in another lungful of air. “I couldn’t tell what it was. I was afraid you’d been hurt.”

“Oh,” Rey said blankly. That was… weird. “So you ran here from the lecture hall?” She stroked his hair soothingly, as much to to calm herself as him.

He shook his head, finally stepping back and letting her down to the ground, although clearly with as much reluctance as she felt to be lowered.

“No. I met Luke coming out as I was going in,” he explained. “He suggested we practice some meditation techniques.”

“Oh, right.” Rey was now doubly glad they’d gone their separate ways this morning - she probably shouldn’t describe any aspect of Jedi training as ‘galactically tedious’, but meditation was certainly not her favorite.

“So we were actually just sitting near the pond,” Ben went on. He looked around. “I wonder if he followed me… I was half way through trying to let an emotion go, when I suddenly leaped to my feet and sprinted off.”

“Which emotion were you letting go?” Rey asked. The goal of making of oneself an empty vessel that the Force could fill wasn’t one she thought she’d ever attain – it was hard enough not knowing her history; she really couldn’t bring herself to let go of anything else.

He smiled at her. “Not love,” he said.

There was a click as the door opened and Rose stuck her head out, grinned at them, then shouted back into the building, “It’s safe!” She stepped outside, leaving the door open. “We seem to have acquired one traumatized Jedi Master, answers to the name of ‘Luke’, sighs a lot – you two know anything about that?”

“Oh, no!” Rey exclaimed, covering her mouth with her hand. The banging door that had brought them back to reality… she exchanged a horrified glance with Ben. “Oh, he didn’t…”

“Get an absolute eyeful?” suggested Rose, cheerfully. “Yep, I’d say so.” She nodded.

Ben groaned and she seemed to take pity on him.

“Don’t worry, Poe is reviving him with some of his special blend caf. And at least this area isn’t in full view of the path - he’d only have seen you as he turned the corner, and then the door is right there.”

Rey wasn’t certain that was so reassuring. The shock value alone would probably keep him in grumbles for a month. She looked at Ben. “Perhaps you should go and…?”

He gave a Luke-worthy sigh. “All right.” He glanced at Rose, and then bent to kiss Rey’s cheek, before squaring his already ridiculously square shoulders and heading inside.

“So, what was all that about?” Rose asked, as soon as he’d gone. “What brought tall, dark, and dangerous rushing in like a fathier out of the starting gate?”

Rey explained about the connection between them and how Ben had once read her mind when she was feeling the words particularly strongly, and had today picked up on the sudden surge of her emotions, but not been able to identify the cause. “He was afraid I’d had an accident,” she finished.

“ _Wow._ ” Rose’s eyes were wide. “Does it go both ways?”

By the time Rey had filled her in on everything she knew about their bond, Ben had emerged with a surprisingly perky Luke (it turned out he hadn’t had caf for a decade and was disconcertingly chatty for the rest of the day), and they all headed over to the refectory for lunch.

And so went their days. Rey generally spent her mornings in the hangar, cementing a friendship with Rose that already felt like it had been years in the making, and fixing up machinery to her heart’s content. Ben would usually stay for a little while, often talking with Poe as he was much more interested in flying than he was in the mechanics of the ships themselves. Not that he couldn’t do it, because he absolutely could – he just didn’t get the same satisfaction out of it that Rey felt. And he was much more fussy about washing the oil off his hands.

He was always happy to help with anything that was needed, though, and was easily the strongest person on the base, even without his Force powers. There had been the one memorable day where he, Finn, and Poe had all stripped down to their undershirts to shift a load of fuel cells. Not a lot of other work had gone on that morning, as Rey had spent most of it sitting on a raised gangway between Rose and Kaydel, contributing to their private running commentary, and occasionally zoning out completely, provoking giggles and a fair amount of friendly ribbing. She didn’t mention that either she or Ben could have easily moved the whole lot without lifting a finger, as she knew Ben had been pleased to be asked, and also that he didn’t want to mark himself out as being too different. Despite the way the Resistance revered Luke and apparently viewed him as the answer to many of their prayers, they didn’t seem to have much actual idea of what a Jedi could do. She was just Rey, and he was Ben. And that was absolutely fine with both of them.

It had actually been one of the few occasions that Finn had made an appearance in the hangar, although they saw plenty of him at mealtimes, and playing card games in the evenings. But for all he was supposedly her ‘oldest friend’, Rey never felt that he was truly relaxed around her, somehow. And there was that comment Rose had made about him being a stormtrooper ‘until recently’, which still puzzled her, although she supposed that asking questions about it would be against the rules. But either she’d been moving in some very odd circles, or she and Finn hadn’t actually been friends for very long. In which case, if he was her 'oldest friend'... what had happened to all the others? The whole thing was very confusing, although she did like Finn very much, and when he let his guard down he was a lot of fun.

Disappointingly, no progress had yet been made regarding finding out if Poe _liked_  liked him, though. Rey had, after much nagging from Rose, suggested to Ben that he could perhaps raise the topic, but Ben had lost what little color he had at the very idea, and he was already so pale to begin with that Rey hadn’t been willing to push it - Rose would just have to come up with an alternative scheme. For herself, Rey hadn’t been able to make up her mind at all. Poe was certainly very handsy with Finn, and the lip biting definitely went well beyond what anyone would consider remotely appropriate for a non-sexual context… but then again, Rose had been right – he _was_ flirty with almost everyone. The exceptions mainly being Ben, and increasingly herself.

Rose seemed to have spread the word regarding Ben’s reaction on that first day being in response to her ‘strong emotion’, and after one young technician had thought it would be a laugh to jump out and surprise her, then nearly had his head taken off by Ben’s flinging open the hatch he’d been standing behind, awareness had definitely been raised. They were now at the point where if she so much as dropped a spanner on her toe, everyone looked to the door, but Ben had gradually improved at controlling his reaction as he accepted that she faced no real danger here. Although he hadn’t got better at all when it came to identifying exactly what kind of emotion she was feeling, to his great frustration.

Perhaps he hoped the meditation would help. Despite Rey being by _far_  the worst at it, Luke seemed happy to focus on Ben for now, and the two of them would usually devote at least an hour or two to meditating each morning, while she was happily wrist deep in circuitry.

The afternoons they spent together, training. Usually off on their own, but a couple of times they had staged proper lightsaber battles, which had drawn quite a crowd. Ben had his own lightsaber, of course, which hadn’t sparked any raised eyebrows despite its color (or its instability). Rey’s saber was _still_ broken, to her ongoing frustration, but it turned out that the item Luke had wanted to retrieve the day they left Ahch-To was his own, green, lightsaber, which he had long since buried up by the temple, for some reason he didn’t explain. Anyway, he seemed happy for Rey to borrow it for training at least, and their battles were a lot of fun – as well as being great learning experiences, of course. Rey added the mental note just in case Luke was listening in, which Ben had warned her he could probably do. Although she was sure she’d be able to tell, as the majority of images in her head would probably have him falling off his stool in a dead faint.

And so… their nights. Topless cuddling had gone very well. So well, in fact, that they had now progressed to ‘almost naked’ cuddling, and were down to sleeping in just their underwear, and even that Rey definitely felt was hanging on by a thread. She had taken herself off to the medcenter – with Rose as an enthusiastic, if giggly, companion – and now sported a small bump just under the skin of her arm, which apparently guaranteed that there’d be no little Bens running around any time soon, even if she managed to get big Ben’s shorts off completely. _When_ , she corrected herself. Definitely _when_.

Although tonight wasn’t looking terribly likely, she acknowledged, as Leia took them aside after dinner and requested an hour or two of her son’s time. Ben looked unsure, but Rey pushed him forward. There was a hunger in Leia that she recognized. If you had someone in your life who meant a great deal to you, be it partner, child, parent, or whatever else, then no matter how many other people you cared about or spent time with, none of them ever filled that particular space. The gap remained – a hollow in the center of your world, shaped exactly around that person.

“Go on,” she said. “I’m tired, anyway.” It was true they’d had a particularly grueling work out that afternoon. Also, an illustration in one of the Jedi texts had given her an idea about her saber, and she rather wanted to try it out on her own – partly because she was still unconvinced of Ben’s skills when it came to lightsabers… and partly in case it turned out to be stupid.

“You sure?” he asked, rubbing his hand over her upper arm.

She nodded. “Absolutely.” She smiled at Leia. “Go talk with your Mom – I’ll see you later.” She definitely felt it was a good thing for them to spend time individually with others, much as a big part of her never wanted to leave his side. But then, a big part of her never wanted to let him out of bed, so she’d accepted that it probably wasn’t best to let her baser instincts steer the relationship.

“All right,” he agreed. Ignoring the crowd of diners around him, and largely ignored by them also, since everyone had gotten used to the pair of them, he took her face in his hands and stroked his thumbs over her cheekbones. “I…” He broke off. “I’ll see you later.”

She nodded, and stretched up on her toes to press a quick kiss to his lips. “Later,” she agreed, before he released her and she turned to hug Leia, who was looking distinctly misty-eyed, and then wished ‘Good night’ to Luke, who was staring resolutely into one of his glasses of randomly colored milk.

With a final wave of farewells to those around her, Rey left the building and made her way to the room she definitely felt of as ‘home’. Home to almost-naked cuddles, and definitely Ben-induced orgasms. She sighed happily as she climbed the stairs and pressed her palm to the reader, but her peace morphed into purpose as she entered the room.

Retrieving the broken saber from her bag, she set it on the floor, and lined up several bits and pieces she’d scavenged from the hangar beside it. Then she settled cross-legged in front of them, glancing at the quarterstaff leaning against the wall before closing her eyes.

Time to focus.


	12. Chapter 12

It was quite late by the time Ben got back to their room, his head still reeling from all the new information his mother had given him. And possibly also from the Corellian whiskey she’d produced half way through their talk. That stuff packed quite the punch.

He had very much hoped that Rey would still be awake so he could discuss everything with her, but she was fast asleep, curled up under the covers rather than in her usual _‘I’m not going to let my lack of bulk prevent me from taking up this entire bed’_ position, so she must have been cold without him. He felt a pang of guilt. She did seem to feel the cold, which was one of the reasons he was so sure she’d come from a desert planet.

She had left the light on for him, but at its dimmest setting, so he was almost ready for bed by the time something on the side table caught his eye, and then he could barely contain his gasp. What had she done?! He walked over, picking up the elongated hilt and looking at it. A saberstaff... He looked up at his beloved, and then back down at the thing she had made.

It wasn’t pretty. But then, neither was his. It had clearly been cobbled together from the original broken saber, and what looked like a ramshackle collection of broken parts she must have liberated from the hangar. He turned it over in his hands, admiring her ingenuity, and very much wanting to see if it worked… but the noise might disturb her, so he reluctantly resolved to wait until morning.

Either way, it explained the prolonged burst of emotions that had so distracted him during his conversation with his mother, and had been the reason she’d broken out the whiskey in the first place. If Rey had been successful she’d no doubt spent a good half hour dancing around the room in celebration, and if she hadn’t she’d have spent at least as long stomping around and scowling at anything in her eyeline.

He set the hilt quietly back onto the table, and finished stripping down to his underwear, moving over to the bed and slipping into it, surprised to find that Rey was wearing a nightshirt – she really must have been cold, because there was no doubt in his mind that she enjoyed their skin-to-skin contact just as much as he did.

It was one of the things he most loved about her… no, that wasn’t right. He loved her for who she was, not for how she indulged his insecurities. It was one of the things he most _appreciated_ about her… that was more accurate. Right from the start she’d made it absolutely clear that he was as important to her as she was to him. That he was wanted. That his feelings were reciprocated. And okay, maybe she’d never actually said the specific words, but he was sure the omission hadn’t even occurred to her. She was a ‘show, don’t tell’ kind of person, and he definitely preferred that. Words were easy. Although… part of him still hoped that she would tell him. One day. He would like that. He would like that very much.

She rolled over toward him as if called by his need for her, and he sighed happily, a wave of contentment sweeping over him with her proximity. One of her hands rose to plunge into his hair, and he was out like a light.

 

When he woke, his head was thumping. No more Corellian whiskey for him, he decided. His mother could keep it. He bit back a groan, opening one eye to take stock of his situation. He was curled around Rey, with one arm stretched out under her neck, and the other wrapped tightly around her waist. She was still asleep, and he wondered if his headache had woken him unusually early, but a glance at the chrono showed that it was his normal time to be up.

And he was, in fact, very definitely… _up_. Having a hangover clearly did not affect his libido, as there was unquestionably a significant ‘below stairs’ situation, despite his bad head.  He shuffled his hips back so that he wasn’t molesting Rey in her sleep, and for once she didn’t move to follow him. Carefully, so as not to disturb her, he extracted his arm and slipped out of the bed, taking himself off to the fresher to shower… and to deal with his ‘situation’.

She still hadn’t moved when he returned and he dithered about what to do. On the one hand, it was clear that her efforts with the saberstaff, whether successful or not, had seriously drained her energy and that she needed to sleep to recover. But on the other, she would _not_ be happy if she missed breakfast.

He walked around to her side of the bed and sat gingerly on the edge, just looking at her, unable to resist reaching out with one hand to stroke her hair back from her face. She was so… everything. Even sleeping she seemed more alive than almost anyone he’d met.

C-3PO’s fact dump about amnesia a few days before had terrified Ben. The information that sometimes when amnesiacs regained their old memories, they lost the new ones, was something he could hardly bear to contemplate. And yet, the very thing he least wanted to think about was exactly what kept popping into his head. Every time Rey touched him… every time they kissed… he feared losing the memory of it. It had made him reluctant for them to take the final step in terms of intimacy, even though he had felt ready since that first night here, when she had passed out before he could act on it.

He was by now convinced that they had not been physically intimate prior to whatever had happened to them, despite obviously having mental and emotional connections. No doubt his mission, if he had truly been a spy as he suspected - and he still couldn’t think of any other explanation - had forced them to be apart. So if they took that step, crossed that line, it would be their first time… and the thought of that being deleted from his mind made him feel sick to an extent that certainly put his hangover into perspective.

He stroked her hair again and she stirred at last, murmuring his name before rolling onto her tummy and smooshing her face almost completely into the pillow. How she could sleep like that, he had no idea. He did want to get his memories back, of course he did. But if the cost was losing these… then, no.

After a few minutes during which he pretty much just sat and gazed at her, he forced himself to move. His mother had given him a calligraphy set the night before, saying it was something he used to enjoy, and he used it now to write Rey a short note, just saying that he’d gone to breakfast, and would be back soon with food. And that he loved her.

He hesitated over the last line since, although he’d told her indirectly, and referred to it more than once, he’d never actually used the words before… but it was hardly a secret – there couldn’t be a person on the base who wouldn’t react to the announcement with a hearty _‘Duh!’_ And she deserved the words. She deserved everything. He would give her the galaxy if it was within his grasp, but he had only himself. It didn’t feel like enough.

 

When he got to the refectory, there was no sign of either Luke or his mother. He wondered if he had missed them, but Kaydel said they hadn’t appeared yet, and Ben grinned inwardly. Clearly he wasn’t the only one with a weak head for Corellian whiskey.

He debated collecting enough food for both himself and Rey and just taking it back to their room, but Finn was at a table alone and Ben wanted to speak with him, so he took a tray instead and walked over to where he was sitting.

“May I join you?” he asked. He hadn’t really had much chance to talk to Finn so far, although they had spent time together in a group, often playing various card games in the evenings – games that Ben usually won, as it turned out. So long as there was a strategic element. Rey preferred the more boisterous ‘ _who can shout the answer first (and loudest)’_ type games, but she would have a go at anything, although the two of them were no longer allowed to play as a team, since they could read each other too well.

Finn didn’t look up, but his fork paused in its journey to his mouth and after a moment he made an affirmative-sounding grunt, so Ben sat down across from him.

“Rey’s still asleep,” he explained, as Finn raised an eyebrow at the large quantity of food on his tray. He didn’t mention the saberstaff, since he still didn’t know if it worked or not and didn’t want people to be asking her about it all day if she hadn’t been successful.

Finn grunted again.

“So, you were a stormtrooper…” Ben tried to open the conversation, but all he got was another grunt. He tried a slightly different tack. “Why did you tell us that, by the way?” he asked. “Surely that would class as _‘information we’d have known before’_? For Rey, at least, even if not for me?”

“You both knew,” Finn acknowledged, responding at last.

“So… why?” Ben asked again. “Everyone else seems to careful to follow my mother’s rule on this, so why not you?”

“Because I lied to her the last time!” Finn snapped.

Ben waited, hoping he would continue, and eventually he did.

“She said those exact same words to me, the first time we met,” he said. “ _‘So you’re with the Resistance?’_ \- exactly the same. And I lied to her.” He grimaced, looking down. “I’d only just got away from the First Order, and I was ashamed of what I was. I said the first thing I thought would please her.” He closed his eyes briefly, his knuckles white around the handle of his fork. “But I’ll be damned if I’m going to lie to her again. Especially when -” He broke off.

“Especially when what?” Ben couldn’t help asking, although with little hope of an answer.

Finn shook his head, stabbing aggressively at his breakfast.

Ben was frustrated, but that was an extremely familiar feeling by this point. And Finn was clearly still troubled over this issue, so perhaps now was not the time for the discussion he wanted to have.

“What you _were_ was not your fault - Rose made that very clear. And you’re not going to argue with Rose, are you?” he asked, deliberately adding a note of levity to his voice.

“Not and live to tell the tale,” Finn acknowledged, visibly relaxing a little.

“And you did join the Resistance,” Ben pointed out. “Just like you said to Rey. You’ve become exactly what you told her you were.”

Finn pulled a face. “I didn’t really ‘join’,” he said. “Not like Poe and the others. I just followed Rey.”

Ben shook his head decisively. “I must have heard more than twenty _‘Why I joined the Resistance’_ stories this past week,” he said. “And they’re all different. Sure, there are common themes, like losses at the hands of the First Order, but no two people’s reasons are the same, and no one’s are ‘better’ than anyone else’s. It’s not a competition.”

Finn didn’t say anything, but he was definitely paying attention.

“Poe was more or less born into it, from what he told me,” Ben persevered. “He grew up in this world. Where did you grow up?”

“First Order barracks.”

“So whose path to the Resistance has been harder?”

There was silence for a good few seconds.

“Huh,” Finn said, looking thoughtful.

Ben left him to ponder as he got on with his own breakfast, until he felt eyes on him and looked up. Rey was standing in the doorway. His heart lifted at the sight of her, as it always did.

“The subconscious fear of missing a meal must have woken her up,” Finn said, without looking round, clearly deducing who was standing there from the expression on Ben’s face. And possibly also the way he had shot to his feet and pulled out a chair.

 “Hi,” she said quietly, as she joined them. Ben wanted to kiss her (so, what else was new?), but restrained himself in deference to Finn, who still seemed very uncomfortable with their relationship. Hmm. Perhaps trying to get him together with Poe might be worth the awkwardness, after all… Ben resolved to reconsider Rey’s cringe-inducing suggestion about a ‘man to man’ talk.

“Good morning,” he said, taking her hand under the table and squeezing it. “How do you feel?”

She held his hand tightly, but her eyes were on the breakfast tray. “Tired,” she admitted.

He pushed the tray toward her. “Help yourself,” he invited. “I got most of it for you, anyway – I was going to bring it back to the room. Did you see my note?”

She nodded. “Yes.” She flashed him a shy smile. “Thank you.”

“Why so sleepy?” Finn asked her, immediately looking as if he regretted the question profoundly and lived in fear of the answer being something he didn’t want to think about.

He needn’t have worried, as Rey responded by reaching to the holster at her hip and pulling out the saberstaff hilt, which she put on the table, a look of pride crossing her face that told Ben all he needed to know.

“You did it,” he said, reverently. “That’s incredible. _You’re_ incredible.”

“What is it?” Finn asked, looking at it doubtfully.

“It’s my lightsaber,” Rey said. “I fixed it!” She looked down at it, too. “Kind of,” she added.

“It’s double-bladed,” Ben explained to Finn. “The original crystal had sheared apart, and instead of trying to force the two halves back into one, she’s reunited them like this. They’re separate, but together. Balanced. It’s the perfect solution -I don’t know why Luke or I didn’t think of it.”

He nodded respectfully at Rey, who looked taken aback. “Right,” she said. “Yes.” She nodded, before adding, “Also, there was a picture in one of the books, and it looked cool.” She made a rueful face, and they all chuckled.

“However the idea came to you, it _is_  perfect,” Ben repeated. “And you’re the one who recognized it. And pulled it off, which is no mean feat.” He touched the back of his free hand to her cheek (Finn would just have to deal). “I’m incredibly proud of you.”

She ducked her head, looking embarrassed. “Thanks.”

“Hey, you guys should stage one of your duels this afternoon,” suggested Finn.

Ben shook his head. “Training first,” he said firmly. “This is a whole new weapon. Rey’s already familiar with using a staff, so that’s a solid basis. But it’s still going to be a learning curve.”

She looked relieved, although he knew she’d enjoyed their ‘battles’ right from the start. It had taken him a little longer – at first so terrified of hurting her that he was constantly ready to pull any strike in case she didn’t block it. But she always did and, despite clearly having less experience with lightsabers, she was a fierce and focused fighter, tremendously gifted at making the most of the terrain. Perhaps he would have the edge in a proper training room, with no external factors - but how many real battles were like that? On a dark night, on uneven ground, with obstacles to work around… he wouldn’t bet on anyone against her. Himself very much included.

His eyes fell to the breakfast tray, and he realized she hadn’t yet taken anything.

“Rey?” he prompted, looking pointedly down to the food and then back to her face just as she was overtaken by the most enormous yawn. Honestly, it was a wonder she didn’t dislocate her jaw, opening her mouth that widely.

His brain suddenly darted off in shockingly explicit direction, and he reached for his water, gulping it down as he gave thanks for the concealment offered by the table and spared a moment to regret the destruction of his leather trousers. They may not have been as comfortable as his current ones, but they’d certainly had the edge when it came to… containment. Gods, he wanted her. His concerns regarding memory loss were still there, but he didn’t think they’d be enough to hold him back much longer. So long as she felt the same, of course. Which she’d certainly always seemed to, thus far.

“Excuse me,” she mumbled, covering her mouth at last, although way too late to deter his incipient erection.

He picked a bread-puff up off the tray and thrust it at her, slightly concerned that Finn would notice they were both reduced to using one hand, as their others were still clasped tightly together under the table, but nowhere near concerned enough to let go.

“What were you two talking about when I came in?” she asked, taking the bread-puff with a small smile. “That looked intense.”

“Um…” Ben caught sight of Finn’s widened eyes and tiny but definite head shake, and thought quickly about how to answer. “Stormtroopers,” he said. Which wasn’t completely untrue, and had in fact been what he’d wanted to talk to Finn about in the first place. “But I should bring you up to date – my mother gave me a lot of information last night. Family history, as well as the more general kind.”

He turned to look at Finn, not wanting to leave him out of the conversation. And also because looking at Finn was much more calming to his trouser situation. “Did you know Luke has a metal hand?”

“What?” he looked startled.

“Yes,” Ben confirmed, glancing back at Rey. “He showed me last night – it’s why he wears that one glove all the time.”

“Goodness,” she said, biting into her bread-puff at last, but not seeming at all as interested as he’d thought she would be.

He frowned. “Are you all right?” he asked her. “Perhaps you should go back to bed for a bit? Crafting a lightsaber is serious business, and a saberstaff can only be more demanding.”

She shook her head. “I’ll perk up,” she said. “Carry on. I’m listening.”

He eyed her doubtfully, but turned back to Finn. “Have you heard of Darth Vader?” he asked. “Did you know he was my grandfather?”

“Sure,” Finn acknowledged. “Everyone knows. It’s why Leia got pushed out of the Senate and set up the Resistance in the first place – because word got out that she was Vader’s daughter. She’d kept it secret all that time.”

“Right,” agreed Ben, although that was actually more information than he’d been given. He blinked, glancing at Rey, who did look surprised this time, although the name obviously wouldn’t mean anything to her at the moment.

“He was a Dark Lord of the Sith,” he explained to her. “The most hated man in the galaxy. Luke sensed conflict in him, but when he went to confront him, Vader cut off his hand with a lightsaber! His own son - can you believe that?!”

A choked noise brought his attention back to Finn, who was staring at him, his mouth working as if words were struggling to get out.

Rey pushed back her chair, pulling her hand free at last. “Just getting some caf,” she explained, which was probably a good idea if she was determined to stay awake and not return to bed as he had suggested.

Ben turned back to Finn as she rushed off. “Do you know this already?” he asked, not wanting to bore him with old news. Although if he hadn’t known about the hand, then he probably didn’t know the rest.

Finn shook his head, his lips pressed tightly together.

“Well, Luke didn’t give up,” Ben went on, as Rey returned and took her seat, both hands clasped around her mug. “And he was right. There _was_ still light in Vader and in the end he did turn. It was he who killed the Emperor, his Master, in order to save his son. Even though it cost him his life.”

“ _What?_ ” Finn exclaimed loudly, blinking as if emerging from a daze.

Ben raised his eyebrows, glancing at Rey, who made a _‘no idea’_ face back at him.

“Darth Vader killed the Emperor?” Finn echoed. “Is that true?” he demanded.

Ben shrugged. “Well, that’s what Luke and my mother said,” he replied. “And Luke should know.”

“Well, it’s not what the First Order thinks,” Finn declared. “The stormtroopers, at any rate.”

Excellent. Perhaps they would get to talk about stormtroopers after all, which was exactly what Ben had hoped when he first sat down.

“They told us that _Luke_ killed Vader,” Finn went on. “ _And_ the Emperor. It’s why he’s such a legend. Why everyone’s so afraid of him.”

“But that doesn’t make any sense,” Rey objected. “Snoke must have known… he knew everything. Why let Luke become such a myth, if he didn’t actually defeat them at all?”

They all thought about that for a minute or two.

“Because the alternative is worse,” Ben said slowly. He nodded to himself. “What would you say is the First Order’s main weakness?” he asked.

Rey and Finn looked at each other. “They lost the Supremacy?” Finn suggested. “Plus a load of other ships. Admiral Holdo took out a whole bunch of them.”

Ben shook his head. “They’ve still got a huge fleet left – their losses, in relation to their remaining size, are nothing compared to ours, from what I’ve gathered.”

“Um… they lost their leader?” Rey offered.

“No,” Ben shook his head again. “It’s a blow, but it’s not an underlying weakness - someone else will step in.”

“Probably that man you saved,” she retorted, pulling a face at him.

“Er… yes. Possibly,” he acknowledged. “Sorry,” he added, since she seemed to expect it. Although really, if it hadn’t been that particular man, it would just be someone else, and at least they seemed to have some knowledge of Hux, which could only be useful.

“Why don’t you just tell us?” Finn demanded impatiently.

Ben sighed. They both preferred the ‘fast and loud’ card games, these two. Not a strategic bone between them.

“As I understand it, the First Order outguns the Resistance about a thousand times over?” he started.

Rey and Finn both nodded, exchanging disheartened looks.

“And I’m sure my mother’s right, and that more people will join us,” Ben went on. “And that she’ll be successful in recruiting allies from the Outer Rim, and so forth.” He paused. “But we’re a gnat on a rancor – potentially distracting, but one lucky swat and we’re gone.”

Rey was looking more depressed by the second, so he pressed on.

“From what I’ve been told, the Resistance, and previously the Rebellion, have achieved their main successes by finding and exploiting weaknesses,” he said. Although it had pretty much sounded like hitting the same weakness three times, if you asked him. “But I think we need a better strategy than just waiting until they build another giant death-star-killer-planet thing, and then blowing it up.”

“Isn’t this something you should talk to Leia about?” Finn suggested.

Ben nodded. “Yes, of course,” he agreed. He’d still not actually visited his mother’s base of operations, as each time he’d approached the building someone coming out had struck up a conversation. The task of ‘making friends’ which had so worried him at first had actually been much easier than expected, since almost everyone seemed happy to talk to him, which was how he’d heard so many of their stories about joining the Resistance. He supposed the fact that he was Leia’s son counted for a lot. And no doubt killing Snoke (or at least being jointly responsible) didn’t hurt. “But I wanted to talk to you first,” he explained.

Finn sat up straighter, his chest puffing out at the words.

“You have experience no one else has,” Ben went on. “You’ve been inside the First Order – you know how they think.”

Finn deflated again, shaking his head. “Nah. I was in sanitation, man. I’ve no idea about the First Order’s plans.”

Ben waved that away. “I’m not talking about their plans – their plans will have had to change by now anyway, after losing their leader, their ship, and me.” He must have been in a position of some responsibility, he thought, to have been able to get Rey in so they could attack Snoke together. But whatever information he may have had was inaccessible to them at the moment, leaving Finn the only source.

He was suddenly staring down the end of a blaster.

“ _What did you say?_ ” Finn asked, his voice quiet and yet deadly serious.

“Finn, _no!_ ” Rey exclaimed, grabbing at Ben’s arm, which he had instinctively started to raise, and holding it down against the table.

“ _He thinks he’s a spy_ ,” she hissed at Finn. “ _Was_ a spy. He thinks he was a spy. He worked it out.” She quickly ran through all the deductions that had led to that conclusion, and eventually Finn lowered his weapon, looking a little sheepish.

“Sorry,” he muttered.

What had he thought? That Ben was confessing to having secretly worked for the First Order all along? To being a double agent? It was a weird conclusion to jump to considering that he was Leia’s son. Not to mention Rey’s boyfriend… _Ah_. Perhaps that was the issue, yet again. Definitely the man needed to get laid, Ben decided. And as soon as possible. He resolved to have a word with Poe for sure, potential awkwardness be damned.

“You were saying…” Rey prompted, releasing Ben’s arm, rather to his disappointment.

“Right.” He cleared his throat, trying to jump back aboard his train of thought. “Tell me,” he said to Finn. “Do you think the other stormtroopers are aware that you’ve escaped?”

Finn shook his head. “I know they’re not. When Rose and I were on the Supremacy, a trooper I was at induct camp with recognized me. We thought the gig was up, but he had no idea - I was wearing a Captain’s uniform and he thought I’d been promoted!”

“Rose was on the Supremacy?” Rey demanded. She did seem more awake now – no doubt the caf kicking in.

“Oh!” Finn exclaimed, looking embarrassed. “Um… best forget that bit.”

“I think we’ve forgotten more than enough,” Ben said wryly. He raised his eyebrows at Rey. “But we’ll keep it to ourselves?” She pulled a face, but nodded.

Finn made a quick jerking motion with his chin, which Ben decided to take as a ‘Thank you’.

“So they kept your defection a secret,” Rey said, musingly. “I guess so that no one else realized it was doable?”

“More than that,” Finn replied. “It’s unheard of to leave the First Order. Almost unimaginable. Even the thought of it would never cross most trooper’s minds.”

“It’s ‘unheard of’, because they made sure you never heard of it,” said Ben. “They allowed a Jedi to seem like the scariest thing in the galaxy, rather than admit one of their own had turned.”

“And not just any one,” Finn inserted, definitely interested now. “Darth Vader was… well…” He described some of the man’s more heinous deeds. Which were a bit more heinous than his mother had mentioned, in fact. Ben shuddered.

“Are you all right?” Rey asked.

He frowned, not sure how to answer. “Yes. It’s just…” He shook his head. “It’s hard to understand how anyone could come back from that,” he acknowledged eventually. And this had been his grandfather. What a legacy.

“Yeah,” said Finn, and there was silence for a few seconds before he added slowly, “But according to Luke, he did.”

Ben cleared his throat. “So, how do we find a weakness in our enemy?” he asked, continuing quickly before either of them could complain about more questions. “We look at what they hide...”

He could see Finn making the connection.

“I learned last night that the original stormtroopers were clones,” Ben explained, for Rey’s benefit. “Genetically modified to follow orders, among other things. But that’s not the case today, is it?”

“No.” Finn shook his head. “Brainwashing, obviously, but that’s it.”

Ben nodded. “My mother said that we are _‘stronger than a conscripted army will ever be’_ ,” he quoted. “She told me to ask you about that - and already you’ve highlighted a major issue.”

Finn was sitting up straighter again, excitement in his eyes. “There could have been others like me!” he realized, his gaze going from Ben to Rey and back again. “And if we can get this information out there… you can bet there’ll be more.”

 

Finn must have made an early start on the information spreading, as Ben kept hearing snippets of related conversations as he carried on with his day. Rey had quickly gone off to practice with her new saberstaff, leaving him to bring his mother up to date, which he did once she and Luke eventually appeared.

She was enthusiastic – albeit in a slightly subdued manner, as she was clearly not feeling her best. Ben made sure to keep her water glass topped up. His own headache had just about lifted by this point, and it was an effort not to smirk at Luke, who was looking particularly haggard. Although in fairness, the man probably hadn’t had alcohol for at least as long as he’d been without caf.

He still insisted on their regular meditation session, though, which was disappointing as Ben would much rather have gone to join Rey. Especially when, yet again, the focus was simply on achieving inner calm and nothing to do with the Force. Ben personally felt that he was pretty calm to begin with, so long as he wasn’t actively thinking about Rey. Which, admittedly, he usually was, so there was that.

On this particular morning, he strongly suspected that Luke had nodded off at least once, so as soon as he spied the first person heading in a lunch-ward direction, he excused himself to join them, leaving Luke snoozing, cross-legged, by the lake.

The talk in the refectory was very much focused on stormtroopers, and how best to enlighten them as to their potential life choices. Finn was at the center of it, with so many questions being fired at him, he was struggling to eat his lunch. He clearly didn’t mind at all.

Ben spotted Poe watching from by the caf dispenser and strolled over to join him.

“Pretty amazing, huh?” he said.

“Yeah,” Poe agreed, his eyes not leaving what could be seen of Finn through the crowd around him. “Wait… what?”

“An ex-stormtrooper, right here,” Ben said, keeping his eyes forward as Poe glanced at him and then away again. “I guess people are only just realizing what a resource they have.”

Poe bristled so much Ben could feel the spikes of indignation without even looking round.

“You’re the one who rescued him, right?” he added, deliberately fanning the flames. “Rose said it was you who named him. You did well,” he added, in his most approving tone. “He’ll definitely be useful.”

“Now you listen here, buddy,” Poe said, turning around at last in order to hold up his finger in Ben’s face. “He rescued _me_. And how many stormtroopers are there? Must be hundreds of thousands. All raised to do one thing. All indoctrinated from childhood. But one of them - not knowing it’s ever been done before, not knowing if it’s even possible – one of them says, _‘No’_.” He glared, sticking his chin out pugnaciously. “Can you even imagine how much courage that took?”

Ben did his best ‘taken aback’ face. “Oh, right!” he said. “My apologies. I didn’t realize you liked him back.”

“What?” Poe asked, looking confused but with a distant hint of optimism.

“What?” Ben responded, playing as dumb as he thought the son of a general could get away with.

The hope faded from Poe’s face and he shook his head. “He and Rose make a great couple,” he said, with an air of finality. He turned to the caf dispenser and started messing with it, perhaps trying to come up with a _‘cure me from crushing on this guy that likes someone else’_ blend. No doubt it would be a big seller, if he could manage it.

“Funny,” said Ben. “That’s just what Rose said about the two of you.” He pushed off from the wall he’d been half leaning on, and ambled back to the serving area, doing his best to keep his smug satisfaction from being visible in his walk. Poe definitely liked Finn. _'Liked_  liked' him, to quote the devilish duo who had kept pestering him about this. His Rey-and-Rose-imposed mission had most assuredly been accomplished.

The satisfaction faded quickly when he noted the time and that there was still no sign of Rey. Gathering a selection of her favorite items, he set off to find her, which didn’t turn out to be difficult since she was on the flattened grassy area part way up the hill overlooking the base, which was where they usually went for training.

Luke was there too, which was probably just as well, as it prevented Ben from trying to act out one of the very many fantasies he’d developed featuring this location, and his current priority was to feed her. He watched in satisfaction as she wolfed down a handful of roasted takhal nuts, very happy to see that she seemed to have regained her appetite, but with his mind already darting ahead to when they got back to their room that night. He was increasingly feeling that he’d run out of inhibitions when it came to Rey. Or perhaps it was more that the inhibiting factors he still felt didn’t seem to matter so much any more.

He loved her. He loved her down to the tiniest component of the smallest cell in his body. Whatever happened with their memories, he couldn’t believe there was any possible version of himself that wouldn’t utterly adore her. And that being the case… what was the point in denying them both, any longer? She’d made it more than clear that she wanted him. And Rey should definitely get what she wanted. He nodded to himself, only snapping out of his reverie when Luke waved a hand in front of his face – possibly not for the first time, judging by his completely fed up expression.

Rey was staring at him too, the look on her face one he very much recognized, as it appeared every time he took his shirt off - and often when he was still fully dressed, but she was clearly thinking about him taking his shirt off. But she almost immediately blinked and looked down, pushing away the rest of her food and reaching for her saberstaff.

Even though he’d had a fair idea of what it would look like once ignited, it was impossible not to be impressed. And it quickly became clear that he had little or no experience against such a weapon, intuitively trying to track each blade separately rather than as a whole, which doubled his effort and halved his focus, whereas Rey was very familiar with using a staff, and never seemed at risk of injuring herself with one blade while attacking with the other, which he could see might be a danger otherwise.

They weren’t fighting, as such, just sparring. Working out methods of attack and defense, without following through. Until she did.

The suns had got lower in the sky as they trained and the light was definitely fading as she drove him back further and further until they were almost in the trees and he pushed back harder, worried that she wouldn’t have enough space to safely maneuver. Her expression was fierce with concentration and she hadn’t seemed to pick up on his concern, so he brought both hands to his saber for greater power and pre-emptively blocked her next strike, thrusting back against the blade in front of him to force her to retreat, but before he could even register what was happening she swept the staff round in a scything motion… and then froze.

Ben looked down to where her second blade was hovering a millimeter from his thigh and then up to where Luke was standing behind her, one arm outstretched. There was the whooshing sound of Rey’s saberstaff deactivating and the heat he’d only just become aware of by his leg disappeared, and then a thud as she dropped the hilt to the ground, quickly followed by another as she followed it down, pulling her knees up to her chest and covering her face with her hands.

Ben threw his own saber aside and fell to his knees beside her.

“I’m all right,” he promised. He didn’t really understand what had happened, but her distress pained him more than any number of near misses. “Rey, I’m fine.” He reached out a hand to her bent head, stroking it over her hair. “I’m _fine_. So, you got a bit carried away… there’s no harm done. Luke was here to stop you, and -”

“No,” Luke said, still standing a few paces away. “It wasn’t me. I was about to, although probably too late to save you from injury, but she stopped herself.”

“Well then,” Ben said, feeling very relieved. He certainly didn’t want to have to keep Luke in attendance every time they worked out – that would be most inconvenient. He shuffled closer to Rey and rubbed her back. “We’ve had near misses before,” he said comfortingly. “Remember the second day, when I tripped over that tree stump and sent you flying? You could have broken your arm!” She’d had quite the bruise after that – he’d felt terrible.

“I think that’s enough for today,” Luke said, as if there was a ‘state the obvious’ competition and he was aiming for first place. He coughed, perhaps realizing that himself. “I’m going to head back down,” he added. “Are you all right with her?”

“Of course,” Ben said, barely glancing at him. He could look after Rey. It would be his honor.

“She needs rest,” Luke added, apparently determined to ensure that his place in the ‘obvious’ stakes was definitely in the bag.

“Yes,” agreed Ben, mentally pronouncing it _‘Duh’_. “See you later,” he said, the _‘Go away’_ at the end of his sentence silent, but only just barely.

Luke went, and Ben sat and stroked Rey’s hair, and her back, until her tension eased and she leaned against him.

“I’m sorry,” she said quietly.

“I’m fine,” he repeated, for at least the fifteenth time. “You didn’t hurt me. Not at all.”

“I nearly did.”

“No points for ‘nearly’,” he said. “Look, you did an amazing thing, but it’s taken it out of you. And you’ve not eaten much all day, so after training hard for most of the morning and all afternoon, it’s no surprise that you were running on auto-pilot.”

She glanced up at him at last, her face tear-streaked but calmer than he’d feared.

“And let’s be realistic,” he added. “Things being as they are with the First Order, probably most of your fighting will be against someone who’s trying to hurt you, not against _me_. So if your default setting when you’re exhausted is to go for the kill, then I personally find that very comforting.”

She managed a weak smile at that.

“Come on,” he said. “It’s getting dark.” And it did get properly dark on… he realized he still didn’t have a clue about the name of the planet they were on, which really felt like something he should know, considering how desperate he was to hang on to the memories he’d made here.

“I’ll get our things,” he said, kissing the top of her head before getting to his feet and gathering up both sabers, together with the leftover food and Rey’s water bottle. Her bag was there too, so he put everything inside and then slung it diagonally across his body before returning to where she was still sitting at the edge of the clearing. “Do you want me to carry you?”

She made a face at him. “Don’t tempt me.” She held out her hands and let him pull her to her feet, where she stood, swaying slightly. “Goodness, I do feel weak,” she admitted.

“Uh huh.” He bent down and wrapped his arm around her thighs before standing up again with her over his shoulder, and she didn’t even pretend to protest.

“Put me down before we get to people,” she said.

“Sure,” he promised, but she was out for the count before he’d even made it half way across the clearing, so he stuck to the spirit of her request rather than a more literal interpretation, and simply avoided anyone that might have seen them.

She half woke up when they got back to their room, but no more than that. Just enough to agree to him removing her clothes when he stripped off his own, and to totter into the shower, where she alternately leaned forward or backward against him as he washed her hair, and then the rest of her. His body reacted predictably, of course, but he ignored it, and when Rey was clearly trying to wake herself up in order to deal with it, he told her to ignore it, too. Just because she was the inspiration for his erection in no way made it her responsibility, and she was anyway far too sleepy for him to feel comfortable taking any kind of advantage.

It was not at all how he’d imagined their first shower together going, but it was perfect in its own way, and taking care of her soothed him in a manner he couldn’t define. She was so strong she rarely needed his help, and while he certainly wouldn’t wish her weak, it was still... it was huge. For her to be allowing it… letting herself be helpless in his arms… it was a physical embodiment of trust, and that meant a very great deal to him.

By the time they were both dry, he had debated the topic of nightwear and decided against it – unless she asked, which he didn’t think she was going to. Slipping into bed next to her, he rolled onto his side and just gazed at her in the dim light he’d deliberately left on, his eyes tracking a lock of hair as it flowed down and curled against her neck.

When he looked back up her eyes were open and focused on the side of his face that was resting on the pillow, but it wasn’t until she raised a hand and started tracing a finger along his scar that he realized what she was looking at.

“I almost gave you another of these,” she said quietly, her expression one of ineffable sadness.

He caught her finger and brought it to his lips. “But you didn’t,” he said against her skin. “And if you had, I would have worn it with pride. It would take more than a flesh wound to drive me away from you, Rey. I’ll never leave you, if you don’t want me to go.”

She blinked up at him.

“I promise.”

Her eyes filled with tears, which hadn’t been his objective at all, but she smiled through them, stretching up to kiss the scar she’d been staring at, before settling back down, snuggling her face into his neck.

They were just on the verge of sleep when she stirred again, pressing a last kiss against his skin.

“I love you,” she murmured, before finally slipping into slumber.

Kylo’s eyes flew open.


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> NOTE: This chapter opens immediately after Chapter 11, NOT Chapter 12.

**_The Night Before…_ **

Leia closed the door of her quarters behind Ben’s departing back and walked over to the Corellian whiskey, pouring another generous slug into her glass. She held up the bottle questioningly toward Luke, who was sitting in the chair opposite the couch, but he shook his head, leaning forward to put his empty glass down on the low table between them.

“It’s been a long time,” he said. “I think one glass of that stuff is my limit.”

Leia nodded, resuming her seat. Probably she should be hoarding this last bottle, since goodness knew when she’d get another now that Han was no longer around making regular runs back to his home world. But what the hell… living like that hadn’t done her much good. Perhaps it was time to enjoy things while she had the chance.

“You did the right thing,” Luke said, showing no sign of leaving even though it was late. He instinctively seemed to know that she needed both company and reassurance. She had missed him so much. Everyone always looked to her to be the strong one, and that was all right most of the time – she’d worked hard for that. But being with her brother allowed her to relax in a way that was rare for her, and sometimes that was desperately needed.

“I know,” she said. She had bitterly regretted not telling Ben their family history the first time around – finding out that he was Vader’s grandson the way he had, only when the scandal broke, had definitely been a factor in the choices he had made. This time she wanted him to know more about his grandfather – that going over to the dark side had cost him everything he loved. And most definitely that he had, in the end, turned back to the light.

She’d also wanted to apologize. Both for keeping that truth from him originally, and for not being there for him enough as he grew up. He would never have listened to her before – would probably not have believed her anyway – but he did now, and she could only hope that some of it would stay with him when his memories returned.

“When he said…” She broke off, hardly able to bear repeating Ben’s words.

“That you couldn’t have done too bad a job, as he seemed to have turned out all right?” Luke nodded. “Yes, I felt that, too.”

They sat ruminating for quite some time, both lost in their own thoughts, but finding comfort in each other’s presence.

Until there was a knocking at the door. Not a knock – definitely a knocking. It wasn’t loud, perhaps in deference to it being the early hours of the morning, but it was persistent. It started, and it didn’t stop until Leia got up off the couch and walked across to open it and Rey all but fell in to the room.

“Ben?” Leia demanded immediately.

Rey shook her head, reaching out to catch hold of Leia’s arm. “Fine. He’s fine. I just left him.”

Leia breathed again, and looked more closely, aware of Luke appearing at her shoulder. Rey’s eyes were wide and distressed and she was wearing what looked like a nightshirt over a pair of trousers, and already looking as if her grip on Leia’s arm was the only thing holding her upright.

“You remembered,” Leia said. It wasn’t a question.

Rey nodded jerkily.

“Just you?” Leia asked, looking behind her but it was already clear that there was no one else there. Luke stepped past them to close the door.

“I think so.” Rey shook her head. “I don’t know. I didn’t talk to him. I pretended to be asleep. I didn’t know what to do!” Her voice was rising almost hysterically, and Leia wrapped an arm round her, drawing her further into the room.

“Come and sit down,” she commanded gently. “Tell us everything.”

Rey came willingly enough, although walking gingerly, as if she wasn’t quite sure where the floor was in relation to her feet. The girl was clearly in shock. Leia caught Luke’s eye and then glanced pointedly at the whiskey bottle and he poured another glass, setting it on the table in front of the women as they sat down together on the couch.

“When?” Leia asked, picking up the glass and pressing it into Rey’s hands.

“About… two… maybe three hours ago?” she replied, holding the glass as if she’d never seen one before and had no idea what to do with it. “Was he here? Did he…?”

Leia looked at Luke, who frowned for a good few seconds, but then shook his head. Leia agreed with him. Ben had experienced one of his moments of distraction, but everyone was used to those by now – they just meant that something was going on with Rey. But she was certain it was no more than that. There was no way he’d got his memories back and covered it so completely. Not her boy. He was many things, but he’d never been an actor - she’d often wondered if hiding his too-readable face had been one of the attractions of that horrible mask; beyond its obvious function of concealing the identity he’d left behind.

“No,” she said definitely. “No, I’m sure he didn’t.”

Rey nodded, looking relieved. “I didn’t know what to do,” she said again, putting the still-full glass back on the table and raising both hands to her temples. “I saw him again with Han… what he did… _my Ben_ … I had to run to the fresher. And when I'd finished throwing up, I just sat there on the floor for ages. I wanted to come and look for him, but I didn’t know which Ben I would find - it’s like there are two of him now in my head. And I thought if he was still my Ben, I shouldn’t tell him anything, because you’ve all worked so hard and I didn’t want to spoil everything if there’s some grand scheme behind all this and he hadn’t remembered yet, but how could I hide it? How could I pretend to him? And if he wasn’t… what if I look into his face and my Ben is just _gone_? I can’t…”

“Breathe,” Leia urged, putting a hand on her back and stroking it in soothing circles. She would come back to this, but first she needed facts. “So, what did you actually do?”

“Nothing!” Rey said, miserably. “I didn’t do anything! I wanted to talk to _you_ , but I knew Ben was here, so I just waited. C-3PO said maybe one of us might get our memory back but not the other and I hoped… I hoped he was right. I mean, I know we can’t keep the truth from him forever - I don’t know how I’m going to manage it at all. But _Gods_ , Leia, it’s going to kill him. He is not that man. He thinks he was a _spy_ – it’s the only explanation he could come up with for having a red lightsaber, and everything else. Finding out what he did…”

Leia nodded sympathetically. It was indeed very tempting to hope that they could keep this innocent, undamaged, Ben forever, but they had to be practical. And on that note…

“So, where is he now?” she asked. “You said you only just left him?”

Rey nodded, wiping at her eyes with the backs of her hands. “Yes – he’s in our room.”

“He’s sleeping?” Leia asked, feeling a frown developing. That seemed problematic – if he woke up to find Rey missing, he might go out looking for her. She glanced toward the door, already thinking about how to handle things if he turned up here.

But Rey shook her head. “No,” she said, shooting a look at Luke which, even viewed from the side, was surprisingly hostile. “He sleeps far too lightly for me to be able to leave without waking him. I put him out. With the Force. He did it to me back on Takodana – I was sure I could do it. And I did it before he went to sleep.” She directed the last statement pointedly at Luke for some reason. “He’ll be unconscious for several hours,” she added. “But he’ll be fine – although he’ll probably have a bad head when he wakes up. I did.”

She didn’t seem too regretful about that, which Leia found oddly reassuring. She might be emotional, and confused, and more distressed than Leia had ever seen her… but she was still Rey. Pragmatic above all else. She clearly loved Ben very much, but she wasn’t sentimental. If she needed to effectively clonk him on the head for a bit, then she’d do it.

“How did it happen?” Luke asked. “Your memory returning - was there a specific trigger?”

Rey looked at him, and again her expression was visibly antagonistic.

“Rey?” Leia prompted, confused both by the girl’s obvious anger, and by her brother’s apparent lack of surprise at it.

Rey blinked and pulled up the side of her nightshirt to reveal the holster at her hip, taking out… a lightsaber? But not like any lightsaber Leia had seen before. She put it down on the table.

“You fixed it?” Luke questioned, and she nodded. “May I?” he asked, reaching toward it, and after a slight pause she nodded again.

He examined it carefully and then stood and held the hilt out horizontally in front of him before activating it. With the familiar sound, a blade emerged from each end, bathing their faces, and the room, in blue light.

“A saberstaff,” he murmured. “I should have thought of that.” He shook his head, seemingly at himself. “And you got your memories back…?” he queried further.

“As soon as the last piece clicked into place,” Rey replied. “I didn’t even test it until nearly an hour later.”

He nodded and switched the saber off again, returning it to her with a small bow.

“It’s yours really,” she said. “I mean – it was your father’s.”

“No.” He shook his head. “No, this is something new. This is yours, Rey. You built it. It belongs to you.”

She took it from him, replacing it in her holster before looking to Leia. “What are we going to do?” she asked.

Leia frowned thoughtfully. “Are we all agreed that Ben still doesn’t have his memories?” she checked.

Luke nodded, and after a moment so did Rey. “Yes, I think so,” she said. “I’m not even sure he would have come back to our room otherwise - I wasn’t going to wait much longer. And he behaved exactly as I would expect from my Ben; I kept my eyes closed, but he was tiptoeing around trying not to wake me. And I’d left the saberstaff on a side table and I heard him pick it up, but he put it down again without trying it.”

“You left yourself defenseless?” Luke interrupted. “Rey, he’s going to get his memories back at some point – you must be more careful! He could have attacked you in your sleep!”

Leia raised her eyebrows at that, but Rey took it up several levels, regarding him with blistering scorn. “You’ve no idea what you did to him, do you?” she demanded harshly. “Even the first time I met him… even as _Kylo Ren_ , he waited until I was awake before trying to extract the map he wanted from my head. How much easier would that have been when I was unconscious?”

She turned to Leia. “Did he tell you what happened? The night Ben destroyed his temple? Did he tell you why?”

Leia nodded. “Yes,” she said, not understanding the relevance.

Rey’s eyes narrowed. “No.”

She explained first how her Force-bond with Ben had worked, and how they had come to know one other, once fighting was no longer an option. And then she described what had happened on that fateful night. How Luke had looked into Ben’s mind while he was sleeping. How Ben had than woken to find his Master standing over him. Saber in hand. Judgment already passed.

Then she turned on Luke. “Who’s to say that what you saw was truly what he dreamed of?” she challenged. “They could have been nightmares. Shoved into his head by Snoke, even – the man was powerful enough.”

Leia was diverted, although throwing her brother a look to say they would be returning to this topic. “I can ask you now - what happened with Snoke?”

“Ben killed him,” Rey replied. She shook her head. “It wasn’t a joint effort, although we worked together to kill the guards, afterwards. But Snoke… Snoke was beyond anything I could have imagined. His power made a mockery of everything I’d learned – he saw everything. Took everything. I was helpless. Frozen on my knees. And he told Ben to kill me.”

“But he didn’t,” Leia murmured.

“No,” Rey acknowledged. “He didn’t. He used the distraction to kill Snoke instead.”

Leia decided this was a good time for a bit of reassurance. “Well, I don’t think you need to worry about ‘your Ben’ being gone,” she said. “It sounds to me as if he was ‘your Ben’ almost from the start.”

“Not enough to choose me,” Rey said sadly, explaining what had happened at the end of their fight.

“So that’s why the Force stepped in,” Luke murmured. “I had wondered about that.”

“He made the wrong choice,” Leia acknowledged. “Too much pride, no doubt. But perhaps also that he couldn’t see a path forward.” She leaned forward and took Rey’s hands in hers. “That’s been my hope all this time,” she explained. “That we could show him another way. Let him see what his life could be - as part of team, with friends and family.” She paused. “And, as it has turned out… love.”

Rey ducked her head and Leia squeezed her hands more tightly. “I hope you are not too angry with us, my dear. For letting you enter a relationship without all the facts. Finn was furious, of course. I persuaded him not to interfere, but not without great difficulty. It’s not that we weren’t concerned, I promise you, but -”

“I’m not angry,” Rey interrupted. “Or at least, not with you. And not about that.” She shook her head. “I don’t know what I’m feeling. There’s too much. I’m angry with Luke, but if I’m honest it’s probably more because my Ben is traumatized by the sleep thing than for his part in creating Kylo Ren – I’d already dealt with that before. And I know I can’t blame him completely – Ben did what he did. He made those choices. He killed… people. He hurt Finn. He was so conflicted. So full of rage. I knew all that and I still went to him. I was drawn to him. I believed he would turn and I was ready to help him. I remember all that. All those feelings. But now… now there is _my_ Ben. My Ben who loves me. Who would cut off his own hand rather than use it against me. And they’re like two different people. Except they’re not. And I have no idea what to do with all that.”

She was crying freely by the end of her statement, and Leia pulled her into a hug. “My dear girl,” she said, patting her back. “You’re not alone. Remember that. Whatever happens. It’s not just Ben who has a family here.” That seemed to change the focus of the tears rather than stem the tide, but eventually Rey pulled back.

“I don’t know what to do,” she admitted.

Leia regarded her sympathetically. “What _can_ you do?” she asked. “If we accept that the Force is at work here, then you can’t tell him, any more than the rest of us could.”

“But do I tell him I’ve remembered?” Rey asked, and then almost immediately shook her head. “No, that would be impossible, wouldn’t it? It’s going to be hard enough hiding what I know, without him analyzing my every reaction, trying to work out what it means. He’s a thinker – he’d know something was very wrong. And not knowing what it was… that would be intolerable.”

Leia nodded. “We carry on,” she agreed. “Although,” she hastened to add, “Just to clarify - I’m not demanding that you sleep with my son for the sake of the Resistance.”

Luke made a spluttering noise, but both women ignored him.

“If you want to distance yourself, we can arrange something,” Leia said. “Something that doesn’t involve telling him everything.”

But Rey was already shaking her head. “No, I want to be with him,” she said definitely. “I mean... I sort of do. I do and I don’t. But he’s still my Ben. For now. And I might not have that for much longer.”

Leia’s heart hurt for the girl, but there was nothing for it. Hopefully the different Bens in her head would eventually merge into someone she could love; and who would continue to love her in return. But whether that would be enough to keep him here, they couldn’t know. They talked for most of the rest of the night, going over possibilities and how they would deal with them, and just generally reconnecting on a level that hadn’t been possible while Rey still had amnesia. By the time the first sun started to brighten the horizon, Luke had almost nodded off several times and Rey’s eyes were as heavy as Leia’s, but it was clear she was hesitant to go back.

Eventually, however, she got up and took her leave - the time was fast approaching when Ben might wake and find her gone. She was still distressed and conflicted, but she knew what she had to do.

Leia hugged her one last time at the door, returning to find Luke creaking to his feet. She glanced at the chrono and groaned. “Let’s get at least a couple of hours' rest,” she said, waving him toward her guest room.

He nodded, trudging off, before pausing at the door to look back at her. “Do you think we should have told her -”

“No,” Leia said definitely, picking up Rey's untouched whiskey and knocking it back. “She doesn’t need any more secrets to keep.”

 

***

 

The next day was a very odd one for Rey. She’d hardly slept, slipping back into bed beside Ben and just lying there looking at him until his unconsciousness relaxed into natural sleep and he reached for her, at which point she turned away, afraid that he would wake and know immediately from her face that something was wrong. He wrapped himself around her as he always did and it was as much as she could do to lie still and try to calm her churning emotions enough that they wouldn’t jump around waving red flags at him in the morning.

She feigned sleep again as he woke, knowing it would mean he wouldn’t touch her, and he didn’t. It wasn’t that she didn’t want him, because she very much did. Always. But she was angry, too. And grief-stricken. And so much else. She must have finally nodded off while he was in the fresher, because he was gone when she woke, but a glance at the chrono showed it hadn’t been for long and she decided to follow him to breakfast. Not that she was hungry, but it would probably be easier to appear normal with other people around. And then she found his note and had to delay until she’d got control of herself again.

Seeing him in the refectory was very strange. It was like having double, or even triple vision, simultaneously seeing her lover, the man who’d tried to kill her, and the one who’d saved her life, all in the same person. He was talking to Finn and she marveled at how well her friend was managing to hold a conversation with the one person he must have hated above all others, although looking back over her recent memories she could see that he had struggled with it at times. And she supposed he was seeing a different side of Ben now, just as she had done, although it had obviously been harder for Finn to acknowledge it, aware as he was of everything that had gone before.

One of the things she had discussed with Leia had been whether to let Finn know she had her memories back, but Leia had advised against it, pointing out that it would be easier to just carry on as she had been, rather than trying to have ‘secret conversations’ with people and risk giving herself away to Ben. Also, Rey suspected that if Finn knew she remembered he might start challenging her about her relationship, and she didn’t feel up to coping with that on top of everything else.

She must have been standing in the doorway for several minutes when Ben looked up and her heart jolted. Her every instinct urged her to go to him for comfort, and yet he himself was the very reason that comfort was needed. She wanted to run both to, and away from, him all at the same time. She dropped her gaze, making her way over to the table where he was already on his feet to greet her.

When he took her hand, she held on tightly but avoided his eyes. It was so confusing. She wanted to be with him, and yet could hardly bear to look at him. Not least because of the scar on his face that she now knew she herself had inflicted. The feeling of guilt jumped in with the rest of her muddled emotions, forcing its way through the crowd even though there really wasn’t room for it.

Doing her best to appear normal, she nodded along as Ben told her several things she already knew, and it was going reasonably well until he expressed his horror at Vader’s lightsaber attack on Luke and she had to get away, afraid that the one bread puff she’d managed to consume would reappear the way her dinner had the night before, when the image of him killing Han had first been thrust back into her mind.

She managed some excuse about getting caf as she rushed off, and he didn’t seem to notice anything amiss, even though she avoided taking his hand again afterwards, cradling her mug as he talked about stormtroopers being the First Order’s weakest link, and following his theory as well as she could on no sleep and with a brain that felt like it had been taken out and put back in upside down, and quite possibly backwards.

 

She left the refectory as soon as possible, her saberstaff thankfully providing a good excuse, and she did indeed want to practice with it. But mostly she wanted to get away. And then, almost as soon as she reached the exit, wanted to return again. But no. She wasn’t going to lurk in the doorway like a tooka-cat who couldn’t decide whether it wanted to go outside, or inside, or outside, or inside… She squared her shoulders and set off toward the hill where they usually went to train.

“Rey!” There were hurrying footsteps and she turned to see Rose jogging toward her. “You’re up late - I thought I must have missed you at breakfast!” she exclaimed, getting close enough to convey what could best be described as a ‘significant’ look. “Had a busy night, did you?” Her grin gained some suggestively raised eyebrows and more than a hint of mischief.

Rey attempted to unstick her face from what felt like a very frozen expression, as she tried desperately to work out how amnesiac Rey would have responded. And simultaneously to suppress the urge to ask what Rose had been doing on the Supremacy, as per Finn’s story, and to block her memories of all the ‘busy nights’ she’d had with Ben, because they were super distracting, and also broke her heart a little, just at the moment.

But all these considerations were overwhelmed by her realization that, for what she now recognized was the first time in her life, she had a proper female friend. Of her own generation. A contemporary. She stepped forward and hugged an unquestionably startled Rose, who nonetheless rose to the occasion and patted her on the back.

“Hey, you okay?” she asked.

“Uh huh.” Rey nodded into her shoulder, and tried to resist the tremendous temptation to just tell her everything. Even though talking to Leia and - she rather grudgingly supposed - Luke had very much helped to ease the huge confusion she’d felt when her memories returned, she wanted nothing more than to drag Rose up the hill and spend the morning discussing everything she now remembered and what it all meant. If anyone could help her make sense of the multiple Bens in her head, it would be Rose.

But Leia had warned her not to. And it would be pointless to tell Rose that she’d remembered, without telling her _what_ she’d remembered… and then Rose might behave differently with Ben, and then Ben might notice and realize that something was wrong, and then the whole plan would come crashing down… Rey sighed. And stood back.        

“I’m fine,” she said, producing the saber and holding it out on her open palm. It had definitely become her ‘go to’ excuse for lateness, tiredness, and general distraction, and it wasn’t really a lie – she was giving people the opening preface and they could already see the conclusion. She just wasn’t telling them there was a whole mid-section they didn’t know about.

“You fixed it?” Rose asked, eyeing the elongated hilt with interest.

Rey nodded, closing her fist and igniting the twin blades, and then twirling the staff in a slow circle.

“Whoa!” Rose exclaimed. “How cool is _that?!_ ” She let out a low whistle. “I guess you’re not coming to the hangar this morning then, huh?”

“No,” Rey agreed. “I’m going to go up and practice.” She turned off the saber and nodded toward the hill she’d originally been headed for. “Luke will no doubt have us training this afternoon, and I want to get a feel for it first.”

Rose nodded. “Definitely. ” She grinned. “Ben’s not going to know what’s hit him!”

She didn’t seem to expect a response, which was probably just as well in the very distracted circumstances. Rey couldn’t deny that there was a part of her that did want to hit him. And part of her that felt awful about the scars she’d already inflicted. And part of her that was mostly involved in remembering how different he’d been as ‘Kylo Ren’ and acknowledging that she’d been just as drawn to him before the saber had exploded as she had been afterward. She’d never felt tempted by his offer. Ruling the galaxy? _So_ not her. But him? The man himself? Oh, she’d been tempted by him.

“And I’m sure Poe can manage without me for the morning,” Rose was saying, making it clear that Rey had zoned out for a key part of her dialogue. “What do you say?”

“Um…” said Rey.

“Great!” Rose beamed at her. “Let’s go!”

And so it was that Rey got part of her wish, as Rose did indeed accompany her up the hill to watch, or as she put it ‘supervise’, while the saberstaff got put through its paces.

Rey didn’t tell her what had happened, but it was still comforting to have her there, and they did inevitably discuss Ben to some extent. Sort of.

“So, are you going to tell me what’s wrong, or should I just start guessing?” Rose asked, after not very long at all.

Rey grunted at her, pulling off a particularly dramatic series of spins that didn’t distract her friend in the slightest.

“Okay, guess number one…” Rose announced, from her position perched on a rock next to the open grassy area where Rey was practicing. “You’re worried he’s somehow surgically attached to his underwear, and you’re never going to get them off.”

Rey rolled her eyes while sticking out her tongue, which was actually a maneuver she’d had to work to perfect. “I don’t know why I ever tell you anything,” she grumbled.

“Because I’m your best friend,” Rose retorted. “Fine. Number two…” she continued, undaunted. “You did get them off, and he has a tattoo of a Wookiee on his -”

“Rose!” Rey protested, deactivating the saber and deciding it was time for a break before Rose managed to really shock her and she accidentally sliced off something she might need later. She walked over to sit at the base of the rock, leaning back against it. “It’s nothing like that.”

“Uh huh,” Rose acknowledged. “So, what is it like?”

Rey dithered. “I’ve been thinking…” she started, pausing to allow for some sort of _‘sounds dangerous!’_ comment from her friend, but Rose didn’t say anything, just made a _‘go on’_ sort of noise. “What if, when we get our memories back, we’re not the same people?”

“How do you mean?” Rose asked. “Like mistaken identity? I may not have met either of you before, but lots of people had at least seen _you_. And surely Leia would know her own son?”

“No.” Rey shook her head. “I mean, our… personalities, I guess. We don’t know anything about ourselves. I might be… I don’t know… a compulsive gambler? Or an assassin! I could be a completely different person.”

“That’s what you’re worried about?” Rose asked.

It wasn’t really, of course. Rey knew perfectly well that _she_ hadn’t experienced any huge personality shift. Memory loss hadn’t made her want something she hadn’t wanted before; it had just let her take it without guilt. She sighed. This was pointless. Rose was probably just going to say that Finn hadn’t seemed to notice any big change in her, and leave it at that. Without Rey giving her more information, how could she do more?

“Did I ever mention my granddad?” Rose asked, unexpectedly.

“Um… no?” Rey said, her surprise making it sound like a question.

“He was a right old bugger,” Rose went on. “Super strict. Never cracked a smile. All about rules, and honor, and duty. No fun at all.”

“Okaaay,” Rey said, confusedly.

“Don’t worry, I’m getting there,” Rose promised. “Anyway, when I was somewhere in my teens, his brain started to go. Dementia, you know?”

“I’m sorry.”

Rose made a dismissive noise. “But what was interesting was how he changed. It turned out that all that stuff – the rules, the regimentation - had been imposed on him when _he_ was a child, and was how he thought he ought to behave. But when all that was stripped away, underneath it was a really sweet guy.”

She paused, and Rey leaned sideways a bit and gently bumped her shoulder against her friend’s leg.

“He didn’t always remember our names,” Rose went on after a moment. “But he would happily play Sabacc with me and Paige all afternoon. I’d never heard him laugh before.” She sighed, but then visibly shook off the nostalgia and refocused on the here and now. “So, what I’m saying is that normally when you meet someone you’re meeting what is essentially them, plus everything they’ve experienced – all the things that have happened to make them the person in front of you. But if you take all those experiences away – either via amnesia like with you and Ben, or dementia like my granddad, or whatever else – then what you’re left with is the person underneath. The basic personality, before events shaped them in one direction or another.”

“Huh.” Rey took that in for a moment, before twisting round so she could see Rose’s face. “You really think so?”

“For sure,” Rose confirmed. “I mean, if someone has amnesia because they got hit on the head, then there may be other factors involved – brains are complicated. But that’s not the case with you two, is it?”

“No,” Rey agreed. Theirs had pretty much been a factory reset courtesy of the Force, as she understood it. Which she didn’t really, but Luke seemed convinced and Ben clearly believed it, and that was good enough for her.

“So, I don’t think you need to worry too much,” Rose said, in a _‘conclusion’_ kind of tone. “Who you are now, is who you are. Sure, life may turn out to have led you down some surprising paths, but you don’t have to stay on them. It’s up to you.”

She took herself off soon after, recalling a rewiring job that she didn’t trust to anyone else, and leaving Rey feeling distinctly calmer. She wasn’t _fine_. The inevitable trauma of Ben's memory returning was still to come, and she was a long way from fine. But she felt clearer in her head. To the point where her adrenaline level dropped sufficiently to reveal how absolutely exhausted she was.

She’d been using the saberstaff as an excuse, but in truth building it had indeed been very draining. And then she’d been up almost the whole night talking to Leia and Luke – who must be similarly worn out this morning – and had only managed maybe half an hour’s sleep in total. She stayed where she was, leaning her head back against the rock and closing her eyes, but it felt like her consciousness had only just started to drift when Luke arrived.

He didn’t tell her to train, but she was still feeling quite conflicted about him and wanted to avoid conversation, so she got to her feet and started running through drills until Ben showed up. With food. She wondered if Kylo Ren would have been be so assiduous about feeding her as Ben always was, but then again, he had offered her the galaxy - she supposed a handful of takhal nuts might not have been too much to ask.

He seemed lost in thought as she stuffed her face as quickly as possible, feeling absolutely ravenous in the wake of her reassuring talk with Rose. Until their eyes met, and she abruptly found it difficult to swallow.

She wanted him. Even knowing who he was, and had been. Even knowing what he’d done… even having witnessed it. She’d been drawn to him before, that was undeniable. Ever since she’d started to sense some light in him. But it was nothing to how she felt now, having seen its strength. Having lived with it. And she had to admit, to herself even if nobody else – although, let’s face it, she’d probably end up telling Rose – knowing that there was that darkness in him… knowing that her Ben wasn’t completely sweetness and light… well, that wasn’t turning her off as much as it probably should.

She broke their connection and reached for her saberstaff, throwing herself away from these confusing thoughts and into their training, pushing herself beyond any limit she might normally acknowledge because fighting was so much easier than thinking. Fighting was instinct and fire and exhilaration, and it was working; she felt more like herself than she had all day, she could do this… until her vision started to blur a little bit at the edges, and she’d backed him right into the trees, and the light was fading, it was getting dark, and he was in shadow… a tall, dark figure with trees behind him and a red lightsaber in his hand, and he struck at her with all his strength, the power of his blow travelling all the way up her arm and making her bones rattle and she swung the staff round because this time she had a staff, and her opponent clearly wasn’t used to that and he wasn’t guarding against it, he wasn’t guarding… he wasn’t… why wasn’t he…

Rey stopped the strike at the last possible moment and stood there, frozen, ice-cold horror dousing her from top to toe at how close she had come to… _Gods!_ She managed to deactivate the saber and then just let it go, collapsing to the ground after it, her mind trying to process what had almost happened but stuttering away from it over and over again.

She gradually became aware that Ben was talking to her, that his hand was stroking over her hair, and down her back. And that she was crying, and that this was distressing him greatly. His tone and touch were soothing, and although she didn’t really feel that she deserved to be soothed, she had no resources left with which to resist him - and it wasn’t as if she wanted to resist him, anyway.

Her recollection of the return to their room was vague in the extreme and she had only the dimmest memory of him stripping her off, and probably only that because he insisted she wake up enough to be able to consent to it, and then there was showering, and then she was in bed, warm and safe, and with Ben beside her.

Her Ben, she decided woozily. They were all her Ben.

And she was his.

She made some effort to convey this to him, and then she was out, the stresses of what must surely have been the longest twenty-four hours of her life finally refusing to be denied even a moment longer.

Rey slept.


	14. Chapter 14

It was still early when Rose made her way to the hangar the next morning. She’d dreamed of Paige again, but for the first time it had been a happy dream rather than just reliving her death, as she did most nights. Progress in a way, she supposed, but at least the sad dreams she was glad to wake from. Waking from a world in which she knew everything was going to be all right, to a reality in which it wasn’t and never would be again… that had been tough in a way she hadn’t quite been prepared for.

She paused on the brow of the small rise between the dorms and her destination, lifting her face to the early morning light and taking a moment to just breathe before squaring her shoulders and pressing on. Work was the thing. Keeping busy. And friends. Friends helped enormously.

Her head was filling with thoughts of Rey and Poe and, of course, Finn as she entered the hangar, surprised to find the lights already on - she wouldn’t have expected anyone else to be up for a good hour yet. The place was quiet though, so perhaps Poe had left them on the night before; he’d certainly seemed distracted enough. Ever since coming back from lunch yesterday he’d been in his own little bubble – she’d had to ask him three times for her Harris wrench back, and he’d absent-mindedly passed her his blaster the first time.

She shook her head, smiling at the memory. Hopefully, whatever he’d been thinking about would lead him down a path of Finn-shaped goodness. The mood around here was certainly right for it - there had been several romances popping up lately. Probably as a result of them losing so many people; a potent reminder that life could be short. And a couple of weeks of relative peace with time for socializing can’t have hurt. Not to mention having Rey and Ben wafting about the place in a cloud of love-soaked hormones that definitely seemed contagious.

Rose walked over to the equipment store in the corner and collected her utility belt. She would make a start on stripping down that faulty shield generator she decided, as she fastened it. That would keep her busy. She ran her eye over the contents of the cupboard, thinking what other tools she would need, and immediately noticing that several of them were missing. Honestly, did no one put anything back in its proper place? This is what she got for knocking off early the night before – talking about her family with Rey had triggered a nostalgic melancholy she hadn’t been able to shake, so she’d had an early night. Clearly, in her absence the concept of tool maintenance and organization had flown straight out the viewport!

Grumbling to herself, she marched toward the shuttle by the side wall where most of the techs had been working the day before, anticipating finding the missing equipment abandoned nearby. But it wasn’t. Or if it was, she didn’t notice it, completely distracted as she was by the shuttle itself. Or rather, what had happened to it.

The main access door was wide open and through it she could see massive damage. And not anything accidental – there were great sweeping cuts criss-crossing the control panel and extending into the bulkhead on either side. What the…?

She started to move forward for a better look, but had only taken a couple of steps when she found herself immobilized; frozen in place with her hand not quite touching the doorframe she’d been reaching for, as a deep voice spoke from behind her.

“The other shuttle,” it said, and her head automatically tried to turn toward the sound, rather than toward the shuttle in question – the one she and Rey had repaired the week before. It was disabled at the moment of course, as all the ships were overnight, on Leia’s orders.

But she couldn’t turn her head. She couldn’t move at all. The voice spoke again and it sounded strange and yet completely familiar, both at the same time.

“You will restore its power.”

 

***

 

Poe held his high note until a soap bubble ran into his mouth and he broke off, grinning irrepressibly as he held his face under the spray. Singing in the shower wasn’t completely unusual for him – he was not-so-secretly proud of his voice - but it certainly hadn’t happened much in recent times. But now… now he felt confident he would be testing the soundproofing of these fancy dorm rooms on a pretty regular basis. And hopefully with more than just singing.

Whistling, he wrapped a towel around his waist and exited the fresher, his eyes going to his single bed as he wondered whether he should relocate to one of the double rooms on the second floor, or whether that would be a bit presumptuous. And… the grin was back. Very difficult to grin and whistle at the same time, he discovered. But definitely a small price to pay for the giddy excitement that was making his stomach feel as if it was busy doing barrel rolls all by itself.

It wasn’t the first time he’d been interested in someone, of course. His romantic history covered a diverse selection of people, most of whom still regarded him fondly so far as he knew. But he’d never felt quite like this. Never looked at the ring on the chain around his neck, and wondered how much longer he’d be wearing it.

But he mustn’t get ahead of himself he decided firmly, realizing he had yet again unconsciously raised a hand to his mother’s ring, and purposefully letting it go. They hadn’t even kissed, for kriff’s sake! He paused in front of the mirror, attempting to eye his reflection sternly but giving up when it became clear that his grin had settled in for the duration. It was true that they hadn’t kissed yet… but they would. He was sure of it.

He was whistling again as he got dressed, thinking back to the night before. Ever since Ben’s _‘_ _I didn’t realize you liked him back’_ bombshell at lunch time, the attraction he’d almost convinced himself was under control had wriggled out of his mental grasp and run delightedly amok through what felt like everything else in his head. No line of thought was safe. No matter what he tried to focus on, everything was Finn… replaying each moment they’d spent together, fantasizing about future ones, wondering if Rose had really said they made a good couple, and if so when, and apropos of what? And was he going to be able to keep his cool even a little bit, when he saw Finn again that evening?

The answer to that had been a resounding ‘No’, he acknowledged ruefully, as he left his room and headed toward the hangar. It was a bit early for breakfast and he didn’t want to look _too_ desperate, just sitting in an empty refectory waiting for Finn to turn up. Although there probably wasn’t much point worrying about that after his performance the night before. He’d been tongue-tied and, for the first time in his life, bashful (which was another hint these feelings were in their own league). So much so that Finn had pulled him outside after dinner and demanded to know what the hell was up, and Poe hadn’t known what to say. He hadn’t been able to say anything. And in the end, he hadn’t needed to.

He’d simply raised his hand and wrapped it around the side of Finn’s neck, and that was all. And then he’d watched as Finn’s expression cycled through surprise, hope, doubt, uncertainty, back to hope again, and then finally… happiness.

“Yeah?” Finn had checked.

“Yeah,” Poe had agreed.

And that had been that. They’d been interrupted moments later, and surrounded by people the rest of the evening, but that was fine. They had both known. They’d sat just a little bit closer, touches and glances lingering, anticipation – among other things – rising, and they’d both known. And today… today, maybe the next step would be taken.

Poe’s own steps lengthened as he crested the rise, breathing in a huge lungful of fresh _‘The Day I Kiss Finn’_ scented air as he started down the slope toward the hangar.

It was quiet, as he would expect at this time of the morning, but he clearly wasn’t the first one in. “Hello?” he called, but there was no reply. A glance to the equipment store showed that Rose’s utility belt was missing, so she was no doubt stuck into some complicated bit of wiring. Possibly quite literally, knowing Rose. He flicked on the caf dispenser (priorities - he had them), and set off to look for her, but had barely rounded the first ship when he came face to chest with someone a good foot taller than he was expecting.

“Ben!” he exclaimed, clapping the ridiculously large man on the arm without really looking at him. “You’re up early! Have you seen Rose?” He leaned to the side, but Ben was far too wide to see around and showed no indication of moving.

“The ignition relays,” he said harshly. “Where are they?”

Poe stopped trying to peer past him and refocused on his face. He looked terrible. Clad in dark robes, red-eyed, and so tense that a muscle under his eye was twitching, he seemed a different man to the one Poe had chatted to the previous day.

“The relays!” he snapped again, his tone demanding and insistent.

Poe frowned.

“Where’s Rose?”

 

***

 

Finn strolled toward the hangar in a _‘Just out for a bit of fresh air before breakfast’_ sort of manner, reminding himself every fifth step that an expression of excited anticipation did not remotely go with the casual vibe he was aiming for. And also that Poe probably wouldn’t even be there yet, so he shouldn’t get his hopes up. It wasn’t much good, though. His hopes, among other things, had definitely got up last night, and there was no suppressing them now.

He reached the door, encouraged to find it standing open, but when he went inside there didn’t seem to be anyone about.

“Poe?” he called, but there was no answer. Ah well, might as well have a look around since he was here, Finn decided. It was a big space - perhaps Poe was simply out of earshot.

He’d done a complete lap of the place and was on the point of giving up and heading to breakfast, when something caught his eye and he did a double take, a surge of adrenaline blasting straight through his fake-nonchalance as he stood stock still for a few long seconds before striding forward to stand in the doorway of the shuttle and stare at the console opposite. That kind of damage, those long slashing lines… he’d seen it before.

 _Gods_.

Shock froze him in place and slid ice-cold down his spine. Kylo Ren. Kylo Ren was back, and just as destructive as ever. Everything they’d done; the sacrifices they’d made… all for nothing. Finn had _said_ they should have taken that lightsaber away. He’d warned them. But Luke had insisted it was pointless – that it would make Ben suspicious, and that he was just as dangerous without it. Which argument hadn’t exactly been encouraging. And now this. Gods, what a mess.

His mind in chaos, Finn backed up a couple of paces, still transfixed by the utterly destroyed console as the ramifications kept thudding into his brain. Rey… Gods, _Rey_ … his heart ached for her. Had she got her memories back, too? He had to find her.

It was that imperative which finally unlocked his limbs and he turned to go, but had barely managed a single step before his adrenaline was spiking again, because right there in front of him was the man himself, standing with his face in shadow; a six foot walking nightmare.

Finn instinctively drew his blaster, but he didn’t fire. He just stood there, knowing he should be afraid, because the last time he’d faced Kylo Ren he’d ended up in a coma, but every interaction he’d had with Ben was flashing through his mind and whatever fear he might have felt was smothered by almost overwhelming regret. And sadness. Sadness for Rey, and for Leia, and… yes, for himself, too – dammit, he had _liked_ Ben. And instead of retreating, he held his ground as a wave of anger swept hot and sharp over everything else.

“You _idiot!_ ” he said forcefully, no doubt seconds away from getting Force-slammed into the nearest hard surface, but saying it anyway. “You get your memories back and what? You just go straight back to the dark side? Don’t you have _any_ understanding of what you’re throwing away?” His free hand clenched into a fist at his side, his words tumbling over themselves as if they were rocks he could hurl at this stupid, _stupid_ man.

Kylo’s head jerked back and Finn got the sense that he was surprised.

“What are you doing in here, anyway?” Finn challenged, waving his blaster to indicate the hangar. “Trying to run back to the First Order?” His lip curled on the name. “It won’t do you any good. Your precious Hux has been all over the HoloNet declaring you a traitor – you’ll be shot on sight.” Even though Kylo had saved his life by stopping Rey from shooting him. Gods, they deserved each other. “And none of the ships will fly, anyway – it’s one of Leia’s safety measures.” He took a breath, looking again at the damaged shuttle. It seemed clear that Ren had already discovered that for himself.

“And Luke has the ignition relays,” Kylo finally spoke, his voice low and rough. “She really did think of nearly everything.”

Finn frowned. “What do you mean?”

“It’s almost impressive,” Kylo acknowledged, bitterness coloring the flatness of his tone. “Making sure I didn’t know where we are. The name of the planet, or even what system we’re in.” He stepped forward into the light and Finn was shocked at how haggard he looked. “Sending people out to intercept me whenever I approached her operations base,” he went on. “Telling them to talk to me, so I thought I was ‘making friends’ as they led me away.”

“You _were_ making friends!” Finn snapped, still not feeling as afraid as he probably should. “Or at least, Ben was.”

“That was her plan, was it?” asked Kylo. “To lure me to the light with _‘emotional connections’_?” The words dripped with scorn. “Show me what life could be like with friends? With family? With _Rey!_ ” He was almost shouting by the end and cut himself off abruptly, his mouth working.

Finn glared at him. “She thought it was worth a shot,” he retorted. “I was against it, of course.”

“But she didn’t listen,” Kylo said grimly, with a twisted half smile. “Of course she didn’t. She never does.”

Finn found himself in the unusual position of defending a decision he hadn’t agreed with. “She had to do _something_ ,” he pointed out, crossly. “The Force created an opportunity – what was she supposed to do? Ignore it?”

“So, she managed to convince you,” Kylo said, bleakly. “She’s good at that. There’s just one thing she seems to have overlooked.”

Finn was opening his mouth to ask the obvious question, when another one leapt in to take its place – a thought that had been niggling since Kylo’s first words.

“How do you know Luke has the ignition relays?”

Kylo said nothing, just stared blankly for long enough that a cold feeling began in the pit of Finn’s stomach, quickly expanding to rise up his throat. His arm moved until the blaster was aimed straight at Kylo’s head. “Where,” he demanded, and now the fear was there – he could hear it in his voice, “is Poe?”

But it wasn’t Poe he saw first, when Kylo finally moved to the side and nodded toward the shadowed area behind the shuttle.

It was Rose.

She was lying on a bunched up tarpaulin, sprawled on her side with one hand tucked up under her face, almost as if she’d decided to take a nap. But obviously she hadn’t.

“Rose!” He ran to her, falling on his knees and gripping her shoulders as he stared at her closed eyes and wished that he could close his own and open them again on a new day – one in which a man he’d just started to consider a potential friend hadn’t gained his memories and lost his mind.

“ _What did you_ _do?_ ” He’d meant to yell, but it came out as a choked whisper.

“They…” Kylo broke off.

 _‘They’?_ Finn’s mind tried to reject the word, but his eyes were already moving, forcing him to look past Rose until he saw that the dark shape beyond her was actually the back of a runyip-leather jacket, and then he couldn’t see anything but red.

Snatching up the blaster he had dropped, he turned where he sat, seeking out the enemy who had done this, knowing that Kylo would destroy him but in that moment not caring at all; it would be easier to go back into that coma than to face what lay ahead - everyone he loved either gone or utterly devastated. _Poe_ … Poe, who could have been everything to him. Gods, why hadn’t he kissed him when he had the chance?

It was a stupid thought, irrelevant amid everything else, but the yearning was so sharp it seemed to pierce the haze of rage long enough for Finn to register that Kylo was making no move against him.

But even as he frowned and his blaster lowered slightly, there was the whooshing noise of the red lightsaber igniting and he straightened his arm and narrowed his eyes, focusing in on his target.

“F-Finn?”

The voice was tremulous and quiet, and an octave above anything he expected to hear, and almost immediately drowned out by an inarticulate roar from Kylo, who strode forward aggressively, saber raised to strike.

All of Finn’s training told him to shoot and to shoot now, before this terrifying threat reached him… but something wasn’t right and he was done taking orders, even from himself.

“Rose?” He made his choice, turning his back on the monster to face his friend. She blinked hazily up at him, and then her eyes fell closed again… but she was alive! Which meant that maybe… Finn reached out to the still unmoving figure beyond her, hope so huge in his chest that it was difficult to breathe. He closed his hand around Poe’s shoulder and pulled gently, rolling him over onto his back… and he was still unconscious, but there was clearly a pulse beating in his neck.

Finn slumped with relief, only then remembering that an armed Kylo Ren was still behind him, and that this might be the most short-lived reprieve in galactic history. He twisted round, raising his blaster again and knowing that this time he would shoot without hesitation. He would defend these two with his dying breath and a few more beyond.

But Kylo was just standing there, the hilt of his saber still in his hand, but deactivated. He wasn’t even looking at them.

“What the hell is wrong with you?!” Finn shouted at him, anger surging anew in the wake of his relief. “I almost shot you!”

Kylo’s lips twisted. “No prize for ‘almost’,” he said, and then just turned and walked away.

With a last check on the unconscious bodies of his two friends, who now seemed in no imminent danger, Finn scrambled to his feet and followed him.

“Hey!” he yelled, grabbing Kylo’s arm before he’d moved into the open space beyond the shuttle and pulling him back round - inwardly acknowledging that he was only successful because Kylo was putting up no resistance at all. “What the hell?” he demanded again, and then really looked at the man before him.

Kylo wouldn’t meet his eyes, wouldn’t even raise his head. What Finn could see of his expression was set and rigid with tension; a closed door with a war behind it.

“You wanted me to shoot you,” Finn said slowly. “You deliberately let me think they were dead.”

Kylo said nothing, turning his head even further to the side, his hair falling over his face.

“But why?” Finn’s gaze fell on the shuttle. “Because you couldn’t get back to the First Order?”

Kylo exhaled sharply through his nose and pulled his arm free, holstering his saber as he did so. “For kriff’s sake - I’m not going back to the First Order!” he snapped, taking a couple of paces back but not attempting to go farther. “I just wanted to get away from _here!_ ”

Finn glanced back at Rose, wishing she would wake up properly and explain all of this to him.

“Is the thought of staying with us _so_ terrible?” he asked.

Kylo snorted again, his eyes meeting Finn’s at last. “You want me to stay?” he challenged, his tone harsh and deeply skeptical. “ _You?_ ”

Finn hesitated, glancing down and shifting his weight awkwardly from one foot to the other. “I didn’t,” he admitted. “I was against Leia’s scheme when she announced it.” And even more so when he’d found out about Rey, but the situation was confusing enough without throwing that into the mix.

He looked back up at Kylo, and for the first time this morning saw Ben.  “But I changed my -” He broke off. “No,” he corrected himself. “No, _you_ changed my mind.”

Kylo regarded him consideringly, then gave a short nod. “You think I should stand trial,” he said, somewhere between a statement and a question.

“I did, yes,” Finn agreed. “But, as your mother pointed out, there’s no one left to judge you.” He shrugged. “It’s just us.”

“Us,” Kylo echoed, his brows drawing together once more. “‘Us’ being a group of people who have no idea of the monster in their midst.”

Finn opened his mouth, but Kylo kept going, overriding any interruption.

“Such a brilliant plan of my mother’s,” he said, his voice once again filled with scorn, but Finn could hear the anguish in it now. “ _‘Let’s show him what his life could be’_ ,” he mock-quoted furiously. “ _‘He never had friends – let’s give him some of those’_.”

There was movement in the open area behind him – time had moved on and others were coming to work. Finn could see faces filled with questions, but asked for silence with a small shake of his head. Kylo didn’t seem to notice, mired as he was in his own despair.

“What was she thinking?” he demanded, both hands rising to emphasize his question. “Working so hard to give me all these attachments? Attachments to people who’ll hate me when they find out who I am. _What_ I am. None of this…” He waved an arm expansively. “None of this is _real!_ ”

His last words were a shout and they hung heavy in the air, before leaving a silence that somehow felt even more weighty.

Finn held his breath, but was unable to stop his gaze flicking from Kylo to the rest of the group, now fanned out in a half circle behind him, and then back again, and Kylo’s eyes widened in horror.

“No,” he whispered, beginning an abortive half-turn before stopping the motion, his hands clenching into fists at his sides. “No.” He shook his head, his eyes squeezing shut as someone scuffled their feet behind him and the truth of the situation became even more apparent.

Finn reached out, but it was Kaydel who got to him first.

“Ben,” she said softly, moving to stand beside him.

He flinched at the name and she hesitated, then took a final step closer and put her hand on his shoulder.

“Kylo,” she said, her voice low but firm. “Kylo… we already know.”


	15. Chapter 15

Kylo heard the words but they didn’t properly register, lost as he was in the darkness that had engulfed him as soon as his memories returned. And not the darkness of power that he had been chasing all these years, but a black despair and self-loathing that had sent him out of Rey’s arms and into the fresher, throwing up what felt like everything he’d ever eaten, all the while knowing that no matter how sick he was, he would never be able to purge the image of his father’s dying face.

From there, he’d dragged on the darkest robes he could find and staggered out of the room and then the building, feeling that he shouldn’t even be breathing the same air as Rey. Rey, who had told him that she… that she loved… his mind teetered on the brink of the abyss that waited for him there before stumbling back, and he refocused on getting away. He couldn’t think about that now.

He headed for the hangar, concentrating on escape with a single-mindedness that felt like the only thing keeping him upright. He didn’t belong here. Here, with this people who were good. Who cared. Who did the right things, and for the right reasons. No. This was no place for a monster.

But he couldn’t escape. His every attempt thwarted. All night he had tried, but the shuttles were immobilized and couldn’t be repaired, and even his last desperate bid at pushing Finn into ending things for him had failed, and he couldn’t stand it… he couldn’t stand to stay here and see the loathing on every face he cared about. The revulsion. The fear.

And yet… And yet, that was Kaydel’s hand on his shoulder. And she did not sound afraid.

He forced his eyes open, seeing a nod of confirmation from Finn before Kaydel moved round and appeared in front of him, her hand now on his arm.

“Leia told us,” she said. “Before she even left to fetch you.” She tugged at his arm until he worked out what she was trying to do and turned round far enough that he could see the rest of the group. They were all nodding at him. Some of them even smiled!

Kylo blinked at them in disbelief. “But…” He didn’t know what to say, his brain desperately wanting to jettison the crippling level of dread it had been maintaining for hours now, but terrified to hope. He felt completely unbalanced.

Someone kicked a crate across to them and Kaydel pushed him to sit on it, bringing him down nearer to her eye level as others grabbed crates of their own and sat or perched near him. Kylo stared round at them all in amazement.

“Leia brought us all together almost as soon as we got here,” Kaydel explained. “She told us what had happened and what she wanted to do with the opportunity.”

“We’re all that’s left of the Resistance,” D’Acy volunteered. “Leia said she wouldn’t make the decision unilaterally. It had to be all of us.”

Kylo blinked at her. At all of them. “But why would you…?”

“Because she asked us to,” came a familiar voice from behind him and he looked round to see Poe walking slightly unsteadily toward the group. He had an arm hooked around Finn, who was supporting a still dopey-looking Rose on his other side.

Kylo got to his feet. “I tortured you,” he said harshly, referring to the interrogation back on the Finalizer. He hadn’t hurt either Poe or Rose today – just sent them to sleep once he knew they couldn’t help him.

“Oh, I remember,” Poe confirmed, rubbing at the back of his neck with his free hand and rolling his shoulders.

Kylo stared at him helplessly. “So, how can you…?”

“For her,” Poe said simply. “At least at first. For Leia.” He pulled free of Finn and took a step closer. “Do you remember what I said when I first met you? Here, I mean. On Vladik 5.”

Kylo was taken aback by the mention of the planet’s name. It was a statement of trust, and disconcerting enough that it took him a moment to think back to their first meeting. It had been here in this same hangar, he recalled, not far from where they were standing, in fact; Poe with his hands too oily to offer in greeting. Kylo wondered now – had that been on purpose?

“Back then, all I could see was the man who had tortured me,” Poe admitted. “The man who had killed in front of me.” He paused, and Kylo briefly closed his eyes, certain they were both thinking of San Tekka. San Tekka, who had known the truth of his identity and whom Kylo had ruthlessly silenced before he could speak of it.

“But what I said was true,” Poe went on. “Your mother does mean a great deal to me. And at first, that was all it was.” He shrugged as if in apology, despite such a thing being absurdly unnecessary. “But gradually you became more than just your mother’s son.” He took another step closer, eyes wide with sincerity. “Yes, you’re Kylo Ren. But you’re also Ben. You’re someone who talks piloting with me for hours at a time. Who stripped down and helped us shift a shed load of fuel cells. Who heard what must be two dozen people’s stories, and _listened_ to every single one. Who plays matchmaker…”

“That was Rose!” Kylo muttered, momentarily distracted.

Poe raised an eyebrow, his mouth twitching into a half smile. “You fit here, Ben,” he said firmly. “There is a place for you here. Not just for Leia’s son. For _you_. And anyway…” He grimaced. “You’re not the only one who’s made bad decisions. Decisions that cost lives.”

Kylo brushed that aside with a shake of his head. His deeds, his _mis_ deeds, went far beyond ‘bad decisions’. He hadn’t just cost lives. He had taken them.

Poe nodded, conceding the point. “You took the wrong path,” he agreed. “And you walked a long way down it. But that doesn’t mean there’s no way back.”

He took a final step forward. And offered his hand.

Kylo stared at it for what felt like a millennium, and then reached out the way a drowning man would strain towards a lifeline. Poe used the grip to tug him forward and clapped him on the back.

“Well, all right!” he said, grinning widely. “Good talk!”

But it was not so simple.

As Poe moved away, Kylo’s eyes met Finn’s and he stared at the man he had put into a coma. The man who had been taken by the First Order while just a small child and raised without choices. Without options. But who had managed to find some, regardless. And who was looking at him now as he had done earlier, almost with pity in his eyes. Kylo found it utterly incomprehensible.

“I killed Han,” he said desperately, not understanding anything at all, but knowing enough of Finn to realize that that would be the sticking point - not their subsequent fight, or Finn’s own injuries at his hands.

Finn nodded. “Yes,” he said. “Yes, you did.” He attempted to ease Rose down to sit on the nearest crate, but she proved stubbornly resistant to the idea.

“Leia explained to us about Snoke,” Finn said, persevering until Kaydel came to sit on the crate and Rose finally acceded and settled down beside her. “When did he first get to you? How old were you?”

Kylo frowned. “I don’t know,” he admitted. “I can’t think that far back.” He wanted to be as honest as possible because these people deserved no less from him, but it was hard to be sure. “Apart from just recently… I can barely remember a time when he wasn’t in my head.”

The shudder that met these words ran through the whole group, not just Finn alone.

“But the choices I made… I did make them,” Kylo felt compelled to insist. “I may have been… _influenced_ , but I wasn’t forced. There’s no excuse -”

“No, there isn’t,” Finn interrupted to agree, turning to face Kylo properly now that Rose was secure. “There can be no excuse for what you did.”

Kylo nodded, bracing his shoulders and trying not to wince at the words, since they were only what he had been saying himself.

“But it’s not about that,” Finn went on, earnestly. “It’s not about finding excuses, or justifying what you did. If you start down that road you end up traveling it again.” He stepped forward, his voice rising in his eagerness to get his point across. “But just because you’ve done bad things, doesn’t mean you have to keep doing them. Isn’t that our whole message to the stormtroopers? Isn’t that how we _win_?”

Kylo took a moment to let that sink in. So, that was it. He was to be the poster boy for second chances. If Kylo Ren could turn, then anyone could. It was a solid plan. He couldn’t fault it. He nodded again, steeling his expression to remain stoic and not show any reaction beyond acceptance of his role. Certainly, it was far more than he deserved.

Finn made a wordless sound of frustration. “Argh! This is coming out wrong.” He turned and pointed accusingly. “Rose was supposed to do this bit!”

Rose had clearly recovered enough to glare at him.

Kylo felt even more confused. “You planned this?” Gods, he didn’t want to be ungrateful. But was he destined forever to jump through other people’s hoops? To be valued more for what he represented, than for who he was? It had been like this his whole life. He was a name. A title. A bloodline. Not a person. He mattered so much… but at the same time, he didn’t matter at all.

Kaydel stood up. “Ugh. Men!” She pulled a face at Finn and then looked pointedly at where she’d been sitting, and he sheepishly took her place as she stepped forward.

“Kylo,” she said, drawing his attention. “Or Ben. Whichever name you choose to go by. What Finn meant to say is that we want you to stay. All of us.” Kylo’s eyes followed her gaze as she looked around the circle, and again he saw nothing but nods and smiles of encouragement. But they didn’t reach him this time.

“No.” He shook his head. He knew his place now. False hope was a mistake. “Look, you don’t have to pretend.” He held his open hands out to the side; a gesture of supplication. “I’ll help however I can. I don’t expect -” He swallowed, pulling his hands back in to his body. “I know the things I’ve done, they… they’re unforgivable.”

“And yet…” Kaydel swept her arm around the group once more.

“We know who you were,” she said emphatically. “We know what you’ve done. But we’ve also seen who you _are_. When everything else is stripped away. The man truly beneath the mask; and not just the obvious one-” she waved a hand in front of her face, “- but all of them. And that man… that man is one of us. We want him. We want _you_.”

There was nothing but sincerity in her voice, but still Kylo didn’t quite dare to believe her.

“And the plan?” he asked, his eyes going back to Finn as the words _’Rose was supposed to do this bit’_ hovered in his mind. He looked at Poe, and then round at the whole group. “You all seem to know just what to say.” He worked hard to keep his tone free of any note of accusation, since he had no right to accuse any of these people of anything at all. “Have you rehearsed this? How best to get ‘Kylo Ren’ to aid your cause…” He said the name as if it was a separate entity to himself. It felt like that, really. Like a different life. Or a lifelong nightmare he longed to wake from.

“Um…” Kaydel’s cheeks colored and she shuffled her feet. “A bit?” she admitted, adding quickly, “But not the way you’re thinking!” She looked around as if hoping someone else would jump in, but there were no volunteers. “The thing is…” She drew herself up to what seemed to be her maximum height and squared her shoulders.

“The thing is,” she started again. “At first we were mostly worried that you’d get your memories back and murder us all in our sleep.” She pulled an apologetic face which was just as ridiculously unnecessary as Poe’s had been.

Kylo nodded to show that he took no offence. It was an extremely reasonable fear, in the circumstances.

“But as time went on, and we got to know you… we worried less about that, and more about _you_ ,” she explained. “How getting your memories back would affect you, I mean. So, no - we’ve not ‘rehearsed’ in any official sense. But lately it’s pretty much all we’ve talked about.”

Kylo didn’t know what to say.

“When you and Rey weren’t around, of course,” she added, and just like that all his budding hopefulness was doused and he was right back on the edge of the abyss he had retreated from as he fled their room the night before.

“Sit down,” Kaydel was saying urgently, when next he was able to register her words. He allowed his body to go where she pushed it and found himself back on the crate, and surrounded by people. By _friends_ , he supposed. Which was unexpected, and undeserved, and absolutely miraculous. But which didn’t stop him from feeling as if everything was disappearing into the same sort of blackness he’d once tried to force upon his soul.

“Put his head down!”

“Just breathe, Ben!”

“He’s hyperventilating!”

 “Give him some air!”

The voices swirled around him the way the whole world was doing, and he didn’t know what would have happened had not four of the words stormed their way through the maelstrom and lit themselves up like an emergency exit sign…

“I think she remembers.”

“What?” He resisted the hands that were helpfully trying to guide him this way or that and looked up to home in on the lifeline he’d just been thrown. By Rose.

She was standing four-square in front of him with her arms folded and her lips pursed, seemingly fully recovered now and regarding him with a somewhat belligerent air.

“Dummy,” she said.

There were a hundred speeches he could have made. A thousand apologies she deserved to hear. But he had nothing.

After a long moment of staring down at him, she nodded, her stern posture easing with a sigh.

“She was different, yesterday,” she said. “Rey. It was more than just lack of sleep. Some of the things she said… I think she had her memories back. I’m almost sure of it.”

Gods, how much he wanted to believe it. It was with the most enormous reluctance that he slowly shook his head.

“No,” he said, with certainty. “No, she can’t have.” She would never have said… what she said to him. Not if she’d known who he was. “She was exhausted after building her saberstaff. That’s why she seemed off. That’s all it was.”

“She remembered,” Rose said stubbornly.

“You’re wrong,” he repeated, sadly. At least her intervention had pulled him back from the panic attack he’d been verging on; that was something. “I wish you were right. But you’re wrong.”

“No, she isn’t.”

The voice came from beyond the crowd around him and it was a little out of breath, but he would have recognized it from among a thousand others with a cantina band blaring in one ear and a bomb going off beside him.

“Rey,” he breathed. And then there she was. Falling to her knees before him as everyone else melted away, and that was all wrong – it should be him on his knees. Not her. Never her.

“Rey,” he said again, apologies and entreaties and shame all fighting to be expressed first, but none of them got a chance before she had thrown herself forward and he was held tight, her arms wrapped around his shoulders, her hands clutching at his back, her mouth pressed against his ear, and –

“I love you,” she said, and he must be dreaming. “I love _you_. Kylo Ren. Ben Solo. I remember everything. I love you.” And it couldn’t be true. It couldn’t be.

“You _can’t_ ,” he protested, wanting to tell himself to shut the hell up, but the words were out there and it wasn’t like he didn’t mean them.

She made a choked sound into his neck before pulling back just far enough that he could see her face and there were tears on her cheeks but she wasn’t crying, not really. “Don’t tell me what I can and can’t do, Ben Solo,” she chastised him and her smile was wobbly but there, and her hands were stroking back his hair, and cupping his face, and she was the most perfect thing he’d ever seen, or ever wanted to.

“Rey.” He could hear his voice like a faulty recording droid just saying her name over and over and never getting any further, but it felt like that was the most important part. She was here. She wasn’t rejecting him. She wasn’t afraid of him.

She was here.

 


	16. Chapter 16

Rey held on as if she would never let go, and in truth she wasn’t sure she was ever going to.

She’d woken not half an hour before to a frenzy of beeps and whistles and a disappointingly empty bed, rolling over to see BB-8 rocking backwards and forwards in agitation, having clearly hijacked the door security.

It had been nearly a full minute before she was awake enough to understand what was happening, her comprehension not helped by BB-8 failing to either calm down or slow down, but by the time the little droid was using a tool arm to throw clothes at her, she had gotten enough of the gist to be tugging them on haphazardly and reaching for her boots.

They had raced to the hangar, BB-8 continuing to explain along the way, and she was astounded to discover that the entire group had known the truth of Ben’s identity all along. Looking back, it kind of made sense now how eager they had all been to share their stories with him – making sure he understood the devastation wrought by the organization he had worked with all this time. The organization he could have been _leading_  by now, for kriff’s sake, if the Force hadn’t intervened the way it had. The full story of how Ben Solo became Kylo Ren may never be known, but it must be possible that on some level he’d thought he was doing the right thing - that the galaxy needed order more than it needed freedom. Whatever happened, the people here had wanted to make sure he’d have a better understanding of the reality.

All these thoughts were still a muddle in her mind as they reached the hangar just in time to learn that Rose had seen right through her yesterday – unsurprisingly, Rey supposed - and then to hear Ben’s absolute denial of her claim.

Rey’s heart broke for him as she pushed through the crowd, struggling to get her breath back enough to speak. She knew what lay behind his certainty; why he was so sure that she was still in the dark. He didn’t believe she could love him. Not if she knew who he was. He would remember, as she did, that he had offered his hand to her once before… and that she had rejected him.

She would never do so again.

“I love you,” she murmured now. Not just once, but a dozen times. A hundred. Still on her knees, clutching him to her, rocking them back and forth as she felt his heart beating and his body trembling and his breath gasping against the side of her neck. Gods, she wished she could take this pain from him, but all she could do was be there with him through it. And reassure him over and over again that he was still loved; still wanted. So very, very much.

She stroked her hand over the back of his head, gradually calming down enough herself to think a little beyond the immediate drama of her awakening. “When did you get your memories back?” she asked at last, once the initial fever of relief at finding him had eased sufficiently.

“Last night,” he mumbled into her hair. His hold on her was still rather tentative, as if he didn’t really believe he was entitled, but he was making no move to pull away.

“When, last night?” she pressed further.

His grip tightened minutely. “When you said… what you said.”

“Exactly then?”

“Exactly then,” he confirmed.

“Huh.” She thought about that.

After another long moment he asked, “And you?”

“The night before. When I built the saberstaff.”

“Exactly then?”

“Exactly then.”

“Huh.” He was quiet, presumably thinking through the events of the previous day in this new light. And gradually she started to feel a change in him.

“You mean it,” he said, so quietly it was a rumble under his breath that she felt more than heard. And then again, a little louder, his arms tightening around her in a way that made her want to weep with relief. “You really mean it.”

“Of course I do,” she promised indignantly, although it was hard to feel properly indignant when he was finally hugging her back as if he really intended to stay. “Haven’t I been telling you all this time?!”

“No.” He pulled back just far enough that she could see his face.

“No. I mean, yes,” he absolutely failed to clarify. “I mean… I got my memories back.”

“Uh-huh,” Rey agreed, wondering if the stress and lack of sleep were taking their toll on him at last.

“No… you don’t understand.”

“I don’t understand because you aren’t explaining _at all_ ,” she pointed out, though she was still so happy to have him here with her she didn’t manage to push even a hint of complaint into her tone.

“No, but think about it,” Ben insisted earnestly, his hands coming up to cup her face. “ _Why_  did I?”

“The Force?” Rey volunteered, because it was always the Force.

He smiled, and the sight warmed her heart beyond all reason. “Because you meant it,” he said, looking at her as if she was the most incredible thing in the galaxy. “Because you… you loved me.” He stumbled over the words as if he could hardly believe what he was saying. “Knowing who I was. Knowing everything. If you hadn’t meant it… my memory would not have been restored.”

He leaned forward until their foreheads were pressed together. “Rey,” he murmured, his tone filled with wonder. “I do not deserve you.”

There were no doubt a dozen responses she could have made but she had never professed to be the ‘thinky’ one, and before she’d managed to come up with anything at all he abruptly seemed to realize that she was still on her knees. He dropped his hands to her waist and then rose to his feet, lifting her up with him.

The movement snapped Rey out of their private little bubble and she became aware that they were surrounded by people, although everyone was studiously tinkering with nearby ships or equipment and purportedly paying them no attention at all. This impression was somewhat discredited by the fact that at least two of them were unscrewing perfectly viable power couplings, and another would probably have been doing the same had he not been holding his pilex driver the wrong way round. Clearly word had spread, and even those who didn’t normally work in the hangar had found their way here.

Chatter quickly broke out as Ben followed her gaze, and they reached for each other’s hands, turning to stand side by side as people stopped pretending to do whatever they’d been pretending to be doing and came over, offering smiles and words of congratulation and pats on the arm and just general ‘welcome to the team – we’re glad to be on the same page!’ sort of greetings, and then there was Rose, right in front of her.

Rey pulled a face. “Didn’t fool you, huh?”

Rose cocked her head to one side. “Little bit,” she conceded, and then grinned. “But nah, not really.”

The two women smiled at each other and then Rey held out her free arm and then they were hugging.

“You okay?” Rose asked, very quietly, her words barely audible above the voices around them.

Rey nodded into her shoulder. “I think so,” she murmured back. “What have I missed?”

They separated and Rose’s eyes slid to Ben, who was clearly overwhelmed by all the attention but seemed to be coping reasonably well, and then back again. “Nothing you need to worry about,” she said.

Rey quirked an eyebrow, because she might not be the thinky one, but she could add two and two as well as the next scavenger, and the fact that it was the hangar they were standing in was not lost on her. He had promised he wouldn’t leave her. He had promised.

“Really.” Rose said firmly and after a long moment, Rey nodded. No doubt they would talk about this at some point and there would be explanations and probably tears, but she would try to relax for the time being. She trusted Rose. 

The hand holding hers suddenly tightened and she looked up to see Ben looking down, clearly anxious at not being able to hear their conversation, which was, admittedly, going on nearly a foot below his ears. She smiled back reassuringly, until a further commotion drew their attention and then stillness fell, the crowd parting to reveal Leia making her way toward them; Luke just behind her.

Rose clapped her hands briskly. “Right, you lot – back to work!” she instructed, making herding motions as everyone started to shuffle off.  “Not you two!” she could be heard adding sharply as she marched away, no doubt to the hapless pair who’d half-dismantled the power couplings. “You put those tools down right now!”

Rey stepped closer to Ben’s side, interlocking their fingers and squeezing as tightly as she could as the diminutive figure of his mother approached. He squeezed back, his tension a palpable thing.

“Mother,” he acknowledged stiffly as she reached them.

Leia’s eyes were drinking him in hungrily, not missing the death grip he was maintaining on Rey’s hand.

“Ben,” she said, her voice gruff with emotion. “I’m so happy to have you back.”

He made a pained noise but said nothing.

“I mean it,” she swore.

Rey looked up in time to see the minute shake of his head, the gritting of his jaw.

“Mother,” he got out again, before clamping his mouth shut as if afraid of what else would emerge from it.

“Ben,” Leia repeated, very gently, taking a final step forward and reaching out a hand. “Ben, your father -”

She broke off at the visible shudder that ran through him and for a moment it looked as if he was going to try to pull himself free and bolt away from them. Rey pressed closer to his side, clutching his arm with her free hand, his muscles like rocks under her fingers.

Leia didn’t back down, her hand alighting on his other arm as she looked up at him, although Rey could see that he wasn’t meeting her eyes directly, his gaze darting all over her face.

“Your father would have taken this deal,” Leia told him. “His life, in exchange for yours. He would not have hesitated.”

“But I…” Ben swallowed, and Rey mentally urged him on, stroking his arm encouragingly.

“That’s not… I’m not here because of him.”

“Are you sure?” Leia asked, and their eyes locked at last. “Rey told me what Snoke said in the throne room. That it was your conflict over what happened with Han that he used to draw her in. Think about it. Wasn’t your father’s sacrifice the first step on the road that brought you here?”

Ben had stilled at her opening words, but now he shook his head in agitation. “It wasn’t a sacrifice,” he denied. “He didn’t _give_  his life – I took it.” His voice sounded as if it had been forced through gravel. “I took it. I killed him. Mother…” He swallowed again, and there were tears on his face. “I killed him.”

Leia was crying too, but she didn’t look away from him for even a second. “He knew the odds,” she said, a note of fond remembrance in her tone. “And he would have done anything to help you,” she added emphatically. “ _Anything_.”

Rey could feel the impact the words had on him, his body stilling into shock.

“That’s what he said,” he whispered, almost to himself. “He said that. That he would do anything.”

Leia nodded, a smile pushing through her tears before she visibly took hold of herself and her expression became stern. “Don’t you dare doubt him,” she commanded. And it was a command, with all the force of her indomitable spirit behind it.

He nodded jerkily and Rey let him go, taking a step back as he stepped forward and wrapped his arms around his mother.

Luke was standing just to the side, a solemn expression on his face. “Hey,” he said in greeting, when Rey’s eyes fell on him. “You okay?”

Truth be told, Rey did feel a little spacey. There had been an awful lot of shocks in a very short space of time and while she could take those in stride in the midst of action, it was harder with no imminent emergency to focus on. But at least these shocks did seem to be working out for the best, and Rose’s reassurance had helped to soothe the worries she still had. She was okay. She nodded.

“Are you going to talk to him?” she asked, indicating to where Ben and Leia were now sitting side by side on one of the crates, their bodies turned towards each other as they spoke quietly, his huge hands clasped together and cradled by her much smaller ones.

“I will,” Luke promised. “I owe him an apology, I know that.”

“Yes, you do,” Rey agreed definitely, because he absolutely did. But if there was anything this day was about, it was forgiveness. And moving on; starting from where you were. “It will be all right,” she added before long - she’d always been better at holding on to hope than grudges. “I’ve got a good feeling about this.”

Luke raised a dubious eyebrow, but after meeting her gaze he made a gruff sound of acknowledgement. “About time someone did,” he said.

“Rey!”

She turned at the call and got a faceful of jacket, instantly recognizing that it was Finn who was wrapping her up so tightly. She hugged him back, closing her eyes and just reveling in the feeling of being reunited with her friend, with no more secrets between them.

“Where were you?” she asked eventually, drawing back. “Oh, hello Poe!” The pilot was standing just behind Finn and raised a hand in greeting, a rather sheepish look on his face.

“Are you all right?” Finn demanded, still holding onto her upper arms.

Rey nodded, finding the gesture easier each time. “I’m fine,” she said. “Honestly.”

He looked tremendously relieved, his eyes roaming over her features as if assuring himself that she really was okay.

“Are you all right with… this?” she asked. “Me and Ben. Him being here. Everything.”

Maybe the rest of the group had known that Ben was Kylo all along, but Finn was the one who had _seen_  it. It must be incredibly hard for him. She remembered how he had been when they first arrived – his face on seeing Ben’s hand holding her own. She wasn’t going to give Ben up. She just wasn’t. But she very much hoped it wouldn’t cost her her friend.

Finn pulled a face. “I wasn’t thrilled when Leia proposed the idea,” he admitted. “I thought it was crazy.” He shook his head in remembrance, but then smiled. “But she was right. Ben belongs here. With us. We’ve all told him that.”

“Oh!” Rey had flung her arms back around him before even thinking about it, relief and happiness almost overwhelming her. She would no doubt find out everything that had happened over these past hours in due course, but for now it was enough to know that Ben was welcome. And that he’d been told that. “Thank you,” she said. “Thank you, thank you!”

“You’re welcome!” Finn laughed, lifting her off her feet exuberantly before setting her back down. “And so is he.” He glanced behind him. “Everyone deserves the chance to find happiness,” he said, and Poe stepped forward, and suddenly Rey knew why they hadn’t been around for the great ‘welcome-to-the-team’ gathering.

“You!” she exclaimed, pointing at Poe. “And you!” Her finger veered back to aim at Finn.

They both grinned at her, and then at each other, and Rey wished she had a holorecorder handy – Rose would never get over missing this.

“Hey, I’m sorry we weren’t around earlier,” Poe told her, when he and Finn had stopped gazing besottedly into each other’s eyes, and everyone had hugged everyone else, and Rey had stopped bouncing up and down in excitement. “But we had a…”

“A thing,” Finn chipped in. “A thing we had to take care of.”

Rey snorted. “Did this ‘thing’ involve making out round the back of the fuel cells?” she demanded, that sheltered spot having gained quite the reputation – hell, she and Ben had been known to take advantage of it once or twice themselves. “Ha!” she exclaimed gleefully, clapping her hands together as their faces answered her question.

Poe rubbed the back of his neck. “We were here when you arrived,” he said, more in a tone of explanation than defense, which was absolutely fair enough – Rey didn’t begrudge them their time together even the slightest bit. “And you clearly had everything under control.” He nodded in Ben’s direction. “How’s he doing?”

Rey looked round, seeing that Luke had now joined the rest of his family and they were all sitting together, talking quietly. Ben’s head was down but he was clearly listening, and much calmer than he had been before.

“I think he’ll be okay,” she said optimistically. “Once he’s had time to process.”

“He loves you,” Finn told her. “Even if I doubted everything else, I’d be sure of that. He would give his life for you.”

“I don’t want him to give his life,” Rey said, almost absently, staring at where her beloved was sitting. “I want him to live it.”

 

 

“Come to bed,” Rey urged, not for the first time.

It hadn’t been easy to get Ben even as far as their room, but Rey was nothing if not determined. He may not feel that he deserved to be here, but it was where he belonged. With her.

“Ben,” she prompted again from where she was sitting on the edge of the bed, still fully dressed despite the late hour in case he bolted and she had to chase after him. In fairness, he wasn’t actually making any attempt to leave - but neither did he look remotely settled, standing awkwardly in the middle of the room as if afraid that anything he touched would be contaminated with some kind of dark side cooties.

Rey sighed.

It had been a long day. Filled with conversation, and meditation – for both of them, Luke hadn’t let Rey off the hook this time – and even a visit to the operations base that neither of them had seen so far, where they’d had some advance strategy discussions about how best the Resistance should proceed. Despite having had no sleep at all, Ben had made some useful contributions, and Rey had met Leia’s eye more than once to share a hopeful smile – Kylo Ren had been famed more for his temper tantrums than his strategizing, so the fact that Ben could still think clearly despite having his memories back suggested he could be free of the rage and frustration that had hindered him for so long. It was early days, of course… but they could hope. Rey was good at that.

“Would you rather sleep somewhere else?” she asked. She could understand that he might not feel happiest in the room where he’d regained his memories – especially as he had reportedly reacted in a similar way to her at the time, in terms of throwing up everything throw-up-able. “That _we_  sleep somewhere else, I mean?” she clarified. He wasn’t going anywhere without her. That option was so far off the table it wasn’t even in view of the conference room.

He was shaking his head, so at least she’d managed to get his attention. “No,” he said. “No, this is… home.”

That was just how she felt herself. “Go shower,” she suggested. She’d relax more once his clothes were off. At least so far as worrying about him leaving. And, much as she always enjoyed him taking his clothes off, that was by far her main concern at the moment

He still didn’t move so she got up off the bed and walked toward him and that did the trick - he’d been increasingly skittish around her as the day went on and it had only gotten worse once they reached their room. He retreated to the fresher, pausing in the doorway to ask if she wanted to go first, but there was no way that was happening. She shook her head and he ducked out of view.

Rey sat back down again and looked in the direction of the closet, wondering if there was any way she could hide all his clothes before he finished showering. Or burn them. She caught her thoughts back before they raced off in even more extreme directions and schooled herself to be sensible. He wasn’t going to leave again. He wasn’t. He knew the truth now. Knew he was accepted here as he was. There was no reason for him to go. She absolutely should not be fretting over whether or not Leia was going to continue immobilizing the ships, a question she hadn’t wanted to ask because of the doubt it contained, but now very much wished she had. And so her thoughts went. Round and round. He wouldn’t leave. He did leave. He won’t go. He did go. Round and round.

“Um…”

She jumped and then turned her head as Ben’s voice interrupted her downward spiral. He was leaning around the doorway of the fresher; his hair still damp and only his naked top half in view.

“Could you please pass me my sleep pants?” he asked, nodding toward the bed with a somewhat embarrassed air.

Rey stared back at him for a long moment. And then burst into tears.

She was dimly aware of a horrified gasp, then it was impossible to hear anything over the violent wrenching sobs that were pushing up from the deepest part of her psyche and exploding out of her as she leaned forward over her knees and pressed the heels of her hands into her eyes and she didn’t want to be like this, she didn’t, but she could… not… help it. She’d thought she could. She’d listened to Rose earlier and she’d pushed her worries down but his withdrawal from her this evening, the increasing distance he was keeping between them, had triggered a fear that had been a lifetime in the making and it was all just… she couldn’t…

“Rey!” There were hands gripping her shoulders and trying to ease her to sit up again but she resisted, shrugging him off and shaking her head.

“No,” she tried to say, but it didn’t come out sounding much like a word. “Not if you’re not going to stay.” Again the words were garbled, and spread out between gasping breaths, but they must have got through because his reply sounded broken.

“Rey… I don’t deserve…”

And she’d had enough. “What about what _I_  deserve?” she demanded, anger giving her voice the strength to emerge more clearly and pushing her to sit upright, her eyes opening. He was on his knees before her, their heads more or less level.

“Don’t I deserve to be happy? To have someone not leave me?”

“Rey! Rey, of course. Of course you do. You deserve all of it. Everything. You deserve so much more… so much better than me.”

She wanted to kick over the pedestal he’d put her on and pound it into dust.  “You don’t get to decide that!” she all but yelled at him. “That is not your choice!”

She fought to get her breath back, trying to organize her thoughts as best she could while staring at this man who meant the world to her. “If you want to leave, then leave,” she said, much more quietly, hating the words even as they emerged from her mouth, but she had to get this out. “I understand why you want to – it’s easier to run away and hide than to stand up and face what you’ve done.”

He flinched at that, but she was beyond subtlety. “Just like Luke,” she added, because he wouldn’t like that. “Go off to lick your wounds and become a hermit and suffer alone, because ‘everyone would be better off without you’. That’s the easy way out.”

He hadn’t backed off – was still right there with her, not touching since she’d shrugged off his hands, but breathing her air.

“But don’t you dare tell me it’s for my sake!” she demanded passionately. “It’s not for you to choose what’s best for me. And it’s not for anyone else, either!”

It was the thought of other people that frightened her the most, truth be told. That someone, somewhere, someday, would succeed in pushing him into doing the ‘noble’ thing, playing on the guilt he would no doubt always feel.

“Everyone here accepts you,” she went on. “You know that. But there will be those who won’t. Those who’ll tell you that you’re a terrible person. That you don’t deserve to be happy. That you should be locked up. That the Resistance – that _I_   – would be better off without you. Your own voice in your head, even – maybe that one most of all, because I know you feel like you should be punished.

“But Ben, I need you to believe _me_  over them,” she insisted, leaning forward and putting her hands on his shoulders, gripping them with all the strength of her feelings. “I need you to not decide _for_  me. I need you to be strong. Because it will take strength. But not more than you have. Not more than _we_   have, together.” There were tears on her face again but she ignored them. If she didn’t get through to him now, she wasn’t sure she ever would.

“Rey, I…” His eyes searched her face. “You really want this? Me? People will judge you too.” He took a deep breath as if needing it to force out his next words. “There are easier boyfriends you could have. Easier lives.”

She scowled, her lip curling at the thought. “I don’t want them,” she declared adamantly, the very idea feeling alien and wrong. “I don’t want any of them. And I don’t care what people say when they’re people who don’t know me, who I don’t care about, and who weren’t there for the Resistance when Leia needed them most.” She held his gaze, willing him to see the truth in her heart. “I want _you_. I love you. I told you that. I need you to stay with me. If you want to, I mean. If you don’t want to, then of course that’s -”

“I want to,” he interrupted. “Rey… _gods_ … I want to.” He raised his own hands again, tentatively gripping her waist, and she did not push him off this time. “But I -”

“No!” she interrupted, shaking her head at herself as much as at him. “Look, I know I shouldn’t do this now. I know you’ve not slept and you’ve had shock after shock, and you must be exhausted and I should wait for a better time, but I…” She could feel her face scrunching up into fresh tears, but there was nothing she could do about that and she sucked in air, racking her brain to try to find the words that would make him understand – there must be some magical combination that if she phrased it just right would get through to him, but he wasn’t the only one who’d been through the emotional wringer and her mind felt numb and she had nothing left. Nothing but the barest, most essential honesty.

“I’m so afraid,” she whispered, seeing his eyes widen and his mouth fall open in shock.

“ _Rey_ ,” he murmured breathlessly.

“Is it me?” she asked. “Am I just easy to leave? Maybe it’s me.”

“What? Rey, no!”

She just stared at him. She’d used all her words. More than she thought she had in her, even.

“Rey…” His hands came up to cup her face, thumbs swiping away tears as they fell.

“Rey, I don’t deserve…”

She closed her eyes. If he was going to break her heart, she wasn’t going to watch while he did it. The silence went on for an age and she finally started to pull her head back, but his grip tightened and he held her in place, which was so unexpected she forced her clogged lashes apart to see him again.

His face was filled with resolve. “All right,” he said and leaned forward so that their foreheads were pressed together and she couldn’t properly see him any more but she could feel the certainty in his words as they soaked into her skin and soothed her soul. “All right, Rey. I will stay until you tell me to go. I won’t listen to anyone else. I won’t be persuaded, or shamed, or pushed into leaving you. Not even by myself. I won’t decide for you. I promise.”

“Really?” She sniffed, pulling in a jerky breath.

“Really.”

“You mean it?”

“I mean it. I know I promised before but -”

“But that didn’t count,” she agreed, nodding and pulling back just far enough that she could wipe her face on her arm wrap. “It was before you knew who you were - like me loving you just as Ben didn’t break the spell… I had to love Kylo, too.” She gave him a no doubt watery smile.

“The ‘spell’?” he echoed, raising an eyebrow at the term even as he directed a pained look at her choice of facecloth, the giant clean freak.

“You know what I mean,” she said, feeling distinctly better at this touch of normality. “And give me your towel if you’re so worried about hygiene.”

“Um…”

Her own eyebrows rising, Rey leaned forward and looked down past the edge of the bed she was sitting on. “Oh!”

“You were crying!” he said in defense of his nakedness, his cheeks flushing. “I wasn’t going to hang around worrying about towels.”

Rey threw her arms around his neck. “You do love me.”

His own arms had wrapped around her automatically, and now he squeezed tightly. “Of course I do.”

She held onto him for a long time, feeling him warm and solid and _there_   beneath her hands. “You won’t change your mind?” she asked, eventually.

“I won’t change my mind.”

“Even if people say that if you really loved me, you’d leave?”

“Even if they say that,” he confirmed. He pulled back a little, but kept his arms around her, his hands splayed wide across her back.

“So, what would you say?” she pressed. Because she needed to know he’d thought this through. That he’d be prepared. That she didn’t have to live with this fear.

“That loving you enough to leave is easy,” he said. “But that I love you enough to stay.”

It was a good answer. She turned it around in her mind and admired it from all angles.

While she was doing that, he leaned back in until his mouth was right next to her ear.

“Rey,” he murmured, his voice so low it shivered over her skin. “Come to bed.”

Her hands reflexively tightened on his shoulders and the gasp that escaped her had absolutely nothing in common with any other noise she had made so far this day.

She pulled back and looked at him, his expression reminding her more of Kylo than of Ben, who had always tended to be hesitant and careful with her. This man did not look hesitant. He looked starved.

“I’m already on the bed,” she managed to point out, although her voice sounded breathless, and not entirely steady. She liked that look on him. She liked it very much.

“So you are.”

One of his hands rose to the side of her neck as they stared at each other, gazes roaming but falling more and more often to each other’s mouths and it occurred to Rey that they had never kissed like this, with both of them knowing who they were. 

The thought had no sooner formed than it became a lie and he was kissing her with more hunger than he’d ever shown, hunger that thrilled and delighted her, a heated balm on the ache that had lingered from his earlier avoidance, as his fingers threaded into her hair and his other hand slid down to the base of her spine. He wasn’t avoiding her now.

Her knees had long since parted to make way for him between them and he tugged her hips forward to the edge of the bed, pulling her hard against him, and Rey didn’t want to be a shallow person, but _gods_   she loved his body. Not just that, of course. But very much also that. With her memory restored, she could recall the first time she’d seen him shirtless – how flustered it had made her and how she hadn’t been able to get the visual out of her head, despite all the efforts she’d told herself to make.

There was just so _much_  of him, and she wrapped her legs around him as tightly as her arms and did her best to press herself even closer, and then he was lifting her, tipping her backwards and crawling up over her, taking her with him as he moved up the bed until her head was on the pillow and he was stripping off her clothes.

“Oh!” she gasped, as her leggings and underwear were whisked away and part of her mind was still wondering how he’d got her boots off so quickly, when he wrapped a large hand around each of her thighs, and then his head ducked down between them.

She arched off the bed, all thoughts fleeing the scene as his mouth closed over her clit and his tongue started circling and then rubbing against that most sensitive of areas, keeping the pressure firm just exactly the way she liked it and _gods_   he was good at this. It wasn’t the first time they’d done it – they’d tried pretty much everything they could think of short of the line he hadn’t felt ready to cross, but he’d never been so… not forceful, exactly. Assertive?

Whatever it was, it was sending her senses spinning and her toes curling and her fingers clutching at the sheets on either side of her as she lay spread-eagled on the bed, still half dressed, panting open mouthed as his hands stroked from the inside of her knees all the way up to where his hair was brushing against her inner thighs, his thumbs circling there, keeping her legs wide apart, his hands curving round her hips and raising her to his mouth as if he could not get enough, and all the time he was maintaining that glorious rubbing, flickering pressure, and just occasionally dipping down to taste the wetness that she could feel seeping from her, his tongue seeking it out as if it were the sweetest honey wine, delving deep before returning to her clit until, as the sound of her breath catching in her throat became loud in the room, he started sucking on it, just gently, but she could already feel her orgasm building and it felt like he was sucking it right out of her body; inexorable, relentless, and there was nothing she could do – nothing she wanted to do – the sensations overwhelming her and she didn’t fight them, her hips jerking in his hands as he took her over that edge and kept her safe through and beyond it, his hands stroking down along her legs and his kisses trailing up her body until he could lay his head on her stomach and she pushed her fingers into his hair and held him against her.

“ _Gods_ ,” she breathed, feeling his smile against her skin and picturing the proud / bashful expression he always wore on these occasions. But she was wrong. He raised his head to look up at her and even though he should be exhausted, even though he’d been through more drama in the last twenty-four hours than most people experienced in a lifetime, even though she herself had put him through the emotional wringer not half an hour before, it was very clear that they were a long way from being done.

“Got your breath back?” he asked.


	17. Chapter 17

Ben – for he had determined that he was going to be Ben, although certainly with some Kylo thrown in – looked up at where Rey lay panting above him, noting with some surprise that her upper half was still clothed. He slid a hand up over her tunic to cover her breast, squeezing it with a possessiveness that he would never have displayed before, but which he was now quite deliberately allowing to run free.

She was still breathing heavily, but there was definitely something of a quizzical look in her eyes as she met his gaze. “Get up here,” she commanded, and it was his absolute pleasure to obey.

He did it in his own time, though, opening her tunic as he went and spreading it wide, unwrapping her breast band and pausing to suck each nipple into his mouth in turn, swirling and flicking his tongue the way he had learned she liked best. He loved using his mouth on her. Anywhere. Completely loved it. It was so intimate – a deeper connection that he felt just from using his hands. He couldn’t get enough and so far she’d been very good about it, long may that continue.

By the time he arrived at his destination she was as naked as he, and he propped himself up on his elbows, gazing down at her perfect face. There was still a slight frown between her eyes, though, and she quickly rolled them onto their sides.

“So…” she started, drawing the word out to at least three times its normal length as he adjusted to their new position, smoothing the hair back from her face and then stroking his hand down her side and letting it settle at her hip. Low on her hip. Perhaps, technically, at least somewhat on her butt.

“Are you warm enough?” he checked. The room felt plenty warm to him but she was a desert creature and soaked up heat like a solar converter.

“I’m fine,” she nodded. “You, um… warmed me up very nicely.” Her cheeks pinkened adorably and for the eleven-thousandth time he couldn’t believe that she really wanted _him_. To be his – at least, so far as she was anybody’s. But he did not let the doubt show even the tiniest bit, stomping it out gleefully because she had made him promise and there was huge freedom in that.

He smiled as her gaze ducked down and her hand started patting at his chest. Not really stroking, but more in a mindless sort of way, as she was clearly busy working out what she wanted to say.

“So…” she started once more, glancing at him through her lashes and then away again.

“So?” he echoed, definitely intrigued now.

“So, you got your memories back…”

“Yes…” he said, drawing the word out for nearly as long as she had.  Where was she going with this?

“And I guess you remembered… lots of things,” she said, her cheeks burning so brightly now that he could definitely stop worrying about her being cold.

“I remembered everything,” he confirmed. So had she, surely? “Didn’t you?”

“Oh yes,” she agreed, nodding. “Yes.” She fell silent again.

“Rey,” he said gently, forcing his very reluctant hand to let go of her behind so that he could put a finger under her chin and raise her face to his. “What is it?”

“I just… I didn’t have much to remember,” she mumbled, keeping her eyes down. “I mean… nothing, really. But you…” She visibly braced herself and finally looked him square in the face. “Did you leave someone behind in the First Order?” she asked abruptly. “A… a girlfriend, maybe?”

“What?” He could feel his eyes widening in surprise.

“We never talked about our pasts,” she rushed on, the words she’d struggled to say now apparently falling over themselves to emerge. “I mean – how could we? We didn’t remember them. And since we got our memories back there’s been so much going on and I didn’t even think about it, and it doesn’t matter of course, not really, but now - just then – well, you seemed a lot more confident. Experienced, maybe? And that’s okay, of course, that’s fine. I just wondered, you know, if you -”

“No one,” he interrupted, giving up waiting for her to reach a break he could squeeze a response into. “There’s no one.” He cupped her face in his hand, stroking his thumb along her cheekbone. “Rey, there’s never been anyone. Only you. Only ever you.”

She regarded him doubtfully. “You don’t have to say that.” Her eyes roved over his face, and his hair, and as much of his upper torso as she could manage without pulling away from him. “I mean… there can’t have been any shortage of offers, and you’re older than me, and -”

He snorted. “I hardly strode around the bridge of the Finalizer with my shirt off!” he pointed out, since him being shirtless was generally what made her eyes glaze over the fastest.

“Well, you didn’t always wear that mask, did you?” she said, stubbornly. “Or all those -” She waved a hand; presumably to represent what she clearly considered to have been an excessive amount of clothing. Although, at least when they were alone, what she considered an ‘excessive amount’ on him certainly didn’t seem to be much.

Ben sighed. “I promise I’ll tell you everything in time,” he said. “Everything that happened, and why I did what I did – at least, so far as I understand it myself,” he acknowledged ruefully. “I was always filled with so much anger and bitterness, almost as far back as I can remember, it made it hard to think. Impossible to reason.” He shook his head, putting all that off until another day. They had plenty of days. All of them, he hoped. “But it certainly didn’t make me popular. I was always a loner.”

Her hand settled on the side of his neck and wrapped around it firmly. “Not any more,” she said fiercely.

“No.” He smiled, tucking a stray lock of hair behind her ear. “Not any more.” He bent his head to kiss her and she allowed it, but it was clear that her mind had not yet been eased.

“Look, it doesn’t matter,” she said, after long enough of an interval to make him feel pretty good about his ability to distract her. “You could have banged the whole First Order and it wouldn’t change how I feel about you.”

He might have snorted at her word choice, but his revulsion at the thought of ‘banging’ anyone who wasn’t her squashed the urge very effectively.

“I just wondered, because you seemed different,” Rey went on. “Not bad different!” she added hurriedly. “Not bad different at all.” She paused before repeating, “ _At all_ ,” with great emphasis and some significant eyebrow movement, because his beloved had many wonderful qualities but it was unquestionably fortunate that ‘subtle’ wasn’t a Jedi requirement.

“I haven’t ‘banged’ anyone,” he told her, thinking that he’d have been much more nervous about that admission had he known of his lack of experience when they first got together. But they’d each assumed their lack of knowledge was down to the amnesia, and then they’d learned together. They’d learned a lot. Indeed, the fact that he’d just got her off in record time and was completely confident that he could do it again, definitely made the confession slip out more easily.

“I’d never even kissed anyone,” he admitted. “Until you, in the clothing hut on Ahch-To.” That lump of rock would always have a special place in his heart. Maybe they’d even go back there some day. He would like that. Just the two of them, though. No randomly appearing relatives.

She beamed at him, giving the distinct impression that he wasn’t the only one who had some possessive feelings, which thought pleased him greatly. He knew it was wrong to think of her as ‘his’, and he really didn’t – he was pushing himself to even act as if he was worthy of breathing her air, for reasons he was about to explain to her. But he was hers. Do with him what she would. Right or wrong. He was hers.

“Me neither,” she said, happily. “Well, someone kissed _me_  once,” she added, a scowl flashing across her features that wasn’t nearly as dark as the one he could feel gathering on his own, as her meaning became clear. “But I didn’t want them to, so I don’t think it counts.”

“No, Rey,” he agreed through gritted teeth, wondering if there was any way to track this person down and dispose of them across as wide a selection of locations as possible. “That definitely doesn’t count.” Not that she needed to keep ‘count’. She was as she was, and what she’d chosen to do with her life and her body was entirely up to her. But an unwanted kiss wasn’t a kiss at all; it was an assault, plain and simple.

“Don’t worry, they lived to regret it,” she said reassuringly, stroking a hand over his hair in a way that would normally be soothing. “Just barely,” she added, with the sort of grin that made his dark side roll over and present its belly.

He was still internally debating whether murder was _always_  wrong if you were going with the whole Jedi thing, or whether exceptions could be made, when she returned to her earlier theme.

“So, the change in you?” she asked again. “Is it just your ‘Kylo’ side? You simply feel more confident?”

“No.” He shook his head, although there was a little bit of truth in her words. Not about his ‘Kylo side’ particularly, but more that it was hard to feel truly confident without your memories – there was always an awareness that the ground you thought you were standing on may turn out to be less solid than you’d assumed. Which had certainly proved true in his case.

“It’s you,” he told her. “What you said. What you let me see.” He paused, thinking back to the despair he’d glimpsed in her eyes as they’d closed and she’d waited for his feeling of unworthiness to outweigh his desire to stay with her. It had been a revelatory moment for him, and one he would not soon forget.

“Hesitance from me isn’t what you want, is it? You don’t like me being too gentle.” He cupped her face again and there was not, nor would there ever be, anything harsh about his touch, but it definitely wasn’t tentative. “You need me to be sure. Sure of myself. Sure of you. Sure of  _us_. It’s my holding back that makes you nervous.”

Her mouth fell open a little. “That is… true,” she said slowly, before a small frown appeared. “But you don’t have to put on an -”

“It’s not an act,” he denied quickly, sweeping his hand down the full length of her spine and pressing her closer, so she couldn’t help but feel how much he wanted her – a need that had eased slightly while they talked, but certainly not gone away. “It’s not. If anything was an act, it was my hesitance all this time – although ‘act’ isn’t the right word,” he added, cutting off the protest he could see brewing before it had chance to boil over, and inwardly cursing his clumsy phrasing. He’d had years of practice at managing with little or no sleep, but the recent lack did seem to be catching up with him now. He shook it off, because if ever there was a time he wanted his wits about him and to be able to fully focus on the situation, it was on this night.

“The hesitance – the reluctance to display possessive behavior, that’s my brain overriding my feelings,” he explained. “Because I do think I’m unworthy of you, and undeserving of love, and all those things.” He shook his head as her mouth opened to protest, and she subsided, although with a mutinous cast to her features. “But I understand, now,” he promised. “I understand that listening to that voice in my head is damaging to you. And that matters more. It always will.”

She still looked uncertain and he tightened his arm around her and rolled onto his back, taking her with him so that she was sprawled on top of him, but now he had both hands free and he used them to grip her thighs and pull them forward as he sat up, easing her up too, until she was astride him and they were face to face.

“So what you’re seeing here, my love… my darling… _my_   _Rey_ … is what I feel. With no filter applied.” Her eyes had widened with every phrase and now he could see tears glimmering there, but they clearly weren’t unhappy ones because she was smiling and nodding and reaching out to touch his face, and then she was kissing him as if he was precious, and beloved, and not at all the monster he had tried so hard to be.

“I don’t want to wait any more,” she said breathlessly, pulling back at last, and he was tempted to tease her and make her spell out exactly what she meant, and possibly use the word ‘bang’ again, because that had been very entertaining, but he didn’t do any of those things.

He looked down to her small, perfect breasts, the sight of which never failed to send the blood rushing to his groin, and slid his hands up her body to cover them, his thumbs stroking over her nipples and loving the way they peaked and pushed into his touch. She was so responsive. So… honest. He never had to wonder what she was really thinking, because she just told him straight out. There were no games, no hoops for him to jump through. He’d grown up surrounded by politics and politicians - had been forced to learn that what people said with their mouths rarely tallied with what they felt in their hearts, but it was never so with Rey. What you saw was what you got, with her. And he loved what he saw. And desperately, passionately, wanted what he’d got.

“Me neither,” he said, moving his eyes back to her face, but leaving his hands very determinedly where they were.

Her lips were parted, her breathing heavier in a way he recognized from many long nights they’d spent together and he watched her expression until she tipped her head back on a moan, her hands catching at his shoulders, before she seemed to collect herself and started to reach down between their bodies.

“No,” he said quickly, adjusting his grip to wrap his hands around her rib cage so that he could support her as he tipped her backwards a little – just far enough that he was able to lean down and lick firmly across one breast and then the other. “If you touch me now, I’ll never last,” he breathed out hotly against her skin. “Just let me…” There were more words he might have said, but his mouth had better things to do and all he managed was another desperate, “Just let me…” before the urge became too strong and he was sucking as much of her breast into his mouth as he could, his tongue rasping over the tip as she moaned his name, her nails scratching at his shoulders in a way that always embarrassed her later, but that he absolutely loved, and he switched to the other breast because he always liked to be fair and give equal attention to both, and he could have happily done this for hours but she was squirming against him, the hot wet heat of her rubbing against his erection as she mindlessly sought friction, and if they were doing this then they really needed to do it now.

“Ready?” he gasped out, raising his head and hoping to all the gods he’d never believed in, that ‘now’ worked for her, because he was quite literally going to explode with wanting her and he didn’t want to do that just yet.

“Gods, yes!” she agreed, nodding frantically. “Yes, yes, _yes!_  Do it now!”

Well, that seemed clear enough. He nodded and she raised herself up onto her knees, and then started to sink down again, and he helped guide himself to where he so desperately wanted to be and then they were there, right on the edge of that moment, and he could feel the warmth of her around the head of his cock and he wanted to drive his hips up more than he could remember ever wanting anything, but he waited, because this could hurt her and he’d done that more than enough already.

But Rey had no such hesitation, pushing her body down and taking him into her with steady pressure, a look of fierce concentration on her face and perhaps she was expecting pain, but apart from a brief moment in which her nails dug into his shoulders, there didn’t seem to be any, and before he could say anything more than a gasped out, “I love you,” they were as connected as they could physically be and Rey exhaled with almost a “Ha!” of triumph, and he looked down at where they were joined but quickly had to look away again, because he was very new to this, after all, and could not be expected to have built up his stamina sufficiently to deal with such sights so soon.

Instead, he pressed their foreheads together and waited for her to adjust to what was – he didn’t want to flatter himself, but if you couldn’t be honest in your own head it was time to stop internal monologuing – a significant intrusion into her body, and focused on the faint sting of the nail marks she had bestowed, and managed to distract himself by wondering if there was any way he could keep them. The Force could be used to heal wounds, after all; perhaps it could be directed to retain some, just this once. So he could look in the mirror whenever he liked and be reminded that he was loved. Wanted. And if anyone else should happen to catch sight of them, ever… well, he wouldn’t mind that. He wouldn’t mind that at all.

“Okay,” Rey said.

“Okay?” he echoed, his love-drunk brain trying to connect a word that meant ‘adequate but unexceptional’ with the current situation and having a complete logic fail.

Ever the woman of action, Rey didn’t bother clarifying, but simply raised herself up a little, then dropped back down again, and that was… ah. Clearly he had mistranslated quite significantly

“Okay,” he agreed at once, and she repeated her movement. Then again. And again, and for a while it was hard to focus on anything other than what was happening right exactly there where they were connected, the sensations of heat and pressure and friction almost overwhelming and making it feel as if the rest of his body was irrelevant because every nerve ending he had was concentrated in this one specific area and everything was this; this was everything, and he could very easily just have come right then, but the knowledge that it would be over once he did helped him to regain some control because he didn’t want this to be over. Not when he’d waited so long. Not when he loved her so much.

He did his best to concentrate more on her than on the incredible sensations she was giving him, and returned one hand to her breasts, spreading the other over her lower belly, his thumb reaching down to rub over her clit, and she moaned and tipped her head back and it wasn’t long before he could hear her breathing speeding up and see a flush spreading across her upper chest, and he could have just let it happen but suddenly this position, despite all the potential he could see it had for the future, wasn’t quite what he wanted just exactly right now, and he moved both hands to her hips to keep their connection in place as he let himself fall backwards and then flipped them so that she was on her back and he was on top of her, and a big part of his brain was yelling at him to check she was okay with this and that he hadn’t over-stepped, but there was sufficient light for him to see the dilation of her eyes, and he knew his Rey well enough to trust she’d let him know if she wasn’t happy.

“Yes,” she gasped, as if he’d just said all that out loud. “Ben, _yes_!” and she wrapped her legs around his hips, encouraging the thrusts he was instinctively making and he could feel the tension coiling and building in his groin and he kept at least some of his weight on his forearms as he lowered his head to kiss her while he still had breath to do so, but his kisses soon trailed away from her lips as she arched her head back, and he could taste the salt of sweat on her skin but it wasn’t enough and he opened his mouth wider and sucked on the side of her neck, not as hard as he wanted to, but harder than he ever had before and she cried out, her hand plunging into the hair at the back of his head to hold him firmly in place, and then she was coming, strong rhythmic pulses squeezing around him and he was right there with her, letting himself go with a last few, desperate thrusts and _gods_ , he did not deserve this woman, but he would never let her go.

It was a long time before he felt coherent enough to speak, although he did at least retain the presence of mind to roll them sideways so he wasn’t crushing her.

Her face was pink, tendrils of hair sticking to her cheeks, and he raised a hand to push them back, continuing on to stroke down the side of her neck and around her shoulder as they smiled at each other, and perhaps she was as overwhelmed as he by the magnitude of what they had done, although he hoped he didn’t look quite so smug about it.

“I love you,” he murmured quietly, knowing it must be glaringly, blindingly obvious, but feeling that, in view of everything she’d been through, it wouldn’t hurt to remind her every time the words popped into his head. Which was a lot.

“I love you, too,” she said, giving the distinct impression that she was having the same thought. Gods, they were going to be sickening; he almost felt sorry for the rest of the Resistance. Except, not really. Certainly from what he’d seen earlier, at least two of them would be far too loved-up themselves to take the slightest bit of notice. Perhaps Rose, too, would find someone soon, he thought absently; although she probably needed time to adjust to her new normal before embarking on a relationship, since she had only just lost her sister.

He could feel his smile slipping at the thought of Paige, about whom Rose spoke often, and thoughts of her were swiftly followed by thoughts of all the other Resistance heroes who had lost their lives because of the First Order. Because of him.

“What is it?” Rey asked softly, ever in tune with how he was feeling.

He shook his head, not wanting to spoil the moment, but she poked him in the chest.

“Nope,” she said, raising an eyebrow. An extremely insistent eyebrow. The sort of eyebrow that suggested there was a potential slap round the ear not far behind it.

Huh. Ben regarded her, feeling as if she was opening him up like a book she wanted to read. He’d never had a relationship where he could just say what he was thinking. Not with anyone. He’d spent his childhood trying to hide the darkness churning inside of him, and his adult life denying his instinctive pull to the light. Snoke had known his thoughts, of course, at least up until the end. Luke, too, in a way – although he had seen a possibility and made it real. But there had never, in all that time, been anyone with whom Ben himself had felt he could be open. Whom he’d let in. His mind had been invaded, but never shared.

“I was just thinking what I’ve cost the Resistance,” he said, giving in to the inevitability that was Rey, and finding it unexpectedly liberating. “The human cost, I mean. People’s lives. Their families. I’ve done so much harm.”

She didn’t deny it, as of course she couldn’t. It was undeniable. But she looked thoughtful. “Yes, you have,” she agreed, still talking quietly, but with honesty, because you always got the truth with Rey. “But you were there for that talk with Leia today. Our plans for the future. Getting the stormtroopers to realize that the First Order isn’t their only option. That they can leave. That other people have.” She stroked his face. “Just by staying with us. Being one of us. You could save us all.”

He gazed at her, the words soothing him at least as far as he would allow himself to be soothed. “It’s difficult, being here with you, having friends as I do now, to remember how I used to feel,” he said slowly, but then immediately frowned. “No, not to remember – I remember clearly. But I don’t feel the same.”

“Good,” Rey said promptly, and he smiled before feeling his brows draw together again.

“There’s so much… I don’t understand a lot of it,” he admitted. “How I got to where I was. It’s like peering back through a red haze of anger and frustration, and now I’m on the outside and I can see that it’s there, surrounding me – or the man that I was - but at the time it colored everything.” He shook his head. “And I was obsessed with finishing what Vader started.” That shamed him now as much as anything, although he recognized that Snoke’s constant jibes had certainly been a factor.

Rey was quiet for a while. “How about finishing what Anakin started, instead?” she suggested.

Ben stared at her, feeling his mouth drop open. Could she possibly mean what he thought she meant?

Her cheeks colored. “I don’t mean right now,” she added quickly.

A sudden vision of a tiny Rey, waving her baby rattle around like a saberstaff and clonking her twin brother on the head with it, made his heart feel as if it was expanding in his chest, perhaps making way for all the extra love it hoped to house, and in that moment he knew that he would never make the choices his grandfather had made. Or his father, for that matter. No child of his would ever need to question their worth, or have the thing they knew best about him be what he looked like when he was leaving.

“But maybe one day?” Rey pressed on doggedly. “I don’t see why not.”

“Is that what you want?” he asked, hearing the catch in his voice and having to swallow before he continued. “A family of your own?”

“More than anything,” she said simply, and of course. Of course. A family was all she’d ever wanted.

“But for now I have my friends,” she went on. “And the Resistance.”

“And me,” he said, because it was obvious, but he’d say it as often as she needed.

“And you,” she smiled. “And that’s plenty to be going on with.”

He nodded. Now was not the time to be thinking of such things, with the galaxy in the state it was, and so much work still to be done. Definitely not. But that fleeting vision was there in his head now, a possible spark on a distant horizon. He wouldn’t dwell on it. He wouldn’t be distracted by it. But it was there, its light a warm thing in his chest.

Rey’s eyelids were drooping and he could feel his own exhaustion pulling at him, despite all his efforts to resist it. He should let her rest. He should. But…

“I’m afraid to go to sleep,” he whispered, quietly enough that it wouldn’t wake her if she’d dozed off, but still out loud, because if he was doing this honesty thing with her, then he was doing it.

She opened one eye. “Bad dreams?”

He nodded. “Always.” Until these last few weeks without his memories, he couldn’t remember the last time he’d slept through the night. Or for more than a few hours, even.

“Snoke is dead,” she said, satisfaction audible even through the sleepiness of her tone. “He can’t get into your head any more.”

“I know.” He nodded again, but logic had never been super effective against fears, and he had so many things to have nightmares about. He didn’t know how much of it had been Snoke.

She looked at him for a long moment, and then rolled onto her back and shuffled up the bed a little and held out her arm, and he settled his head on her chest and wrapped his arm across her middle and curved himself into her as far as was humanly possible and felt the tension draining out of him with every beat of her heart. Her hand was in his hair, her scent in his nose, her love a tangible presence all around him, and he was home.

“You can sleep safe in my arms,” she said.

And he did.

 


End file.
